NFG Games

Remaking Street Fighter

2008-03-31T23:01:00+09:00

So Capcom's remaking their seminal beat-em-up with all-new high-def graphics for the XBox 360 Live Arcade. It's gonna be the same gameplay we know and love with a glorious new skin.

But Capcom's not alone in doing a Street Fighter remix. While the PC Engine version of Street Fighter 2: CE was the best looking 16-bit version of the game, it turns out that NEC Avenue didn't do the best job possible when porting it to the PCE. Their choice of colours was often poor, and despite having two and a half times more storage than the next largest HuCard, they cut a lot of detail from the backgrounds as well.

Determined to right this wrong, some hardcore fans are adding more details, sourcing graphics from the arcade and other console ports, and converting them to the PC Engine's tile-based 9-bit colour palette. Then they're going to shove the graphics back into the PC Engine game, creating the ultimate 16-bit Street Fighter.

Check out these screenshots:In the Guile stage you can see they've added the two missing characters, a girl and guy on the left side. The background has been darkened, the shading on the jet completely reworked, and people in the background now have accurate skin tones.

The most obvious change to the Ryu stage is the addition of the moon, taken from the arcade version. The only home version to originally feature the moon was the MegaDrive/Genesis. The colours have been heavily tweaked: the wooden planks are less garish, the background tiles less green. The sky's shading has been changed, and the small building in the background has more detail, visible because of a palette change.

Vdigi VDW2 Wii VGA Cable Review

2008-02-15T23:53:00+09:00

Ahh, yes! Ever since the heady days of the Dreamcast, I've longed for that pixel perfect display that Sega's VGA box delivered. I've tried many tricks and products - some that I'm not proud of, but the relentless pursuit of RGB glory continues undeterred. So how does my latest attempt to dodge the $300+ XRGB converter line fair? Let's find out!

The Vdigi VDW2 arrived from Hong Kong in a simple plastic bag nestled inside of a bubble wrap padded envelope. No box or instructions? Wait! Look closer and you'll find the box and instructions flat-pack style next to the cable. Very cool packaging, truth be told. Simple but sharp. No gaudy colors or hacky pseudo-game/anime graphics. If I had a game shop, I'd stock it.

At any rate, on to the product. The cable itself has the density of a high quality power cord. That is to say, it's thick, sturdy and makes me feel like I could tow a car with it. The VGA connection point itself is sturdy and appears to be shielded. A nice feature of the cable is the green RCA cable you see dangling in the picture. If your Wii isn't already set up for 480p, you can use this part of the cable to hook it up to a TV (HD or otherwise) and make the necessary adjustment. Very clever.

The main two test beds I used were No More Heroes (because I remain highly enamored with it) and, the true test, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core.

If you want a gold standard for testing a video cable - look no further than a high res 2D game. And since GGXXAC is currently the highest res 2D game I own... the Vdigi will live or die by her.

Both the Wii interface and No More Heroes showed a marked improvement over the component>VGA box I was using previously.

There was less dot crawl and blurring that I could see. The overhead map was much sharper and I could find treasures and Lovikov balls without straining my eyes. There was a general overall improvement to the visuals of the game, granted NMH is not an eye candy fest, so I was mostly looking to see if the game appeared better in a qualitative sense. In that regard, the VD W2 did quite well.

Onto Daisuke Ishiwatari's masterpiece Guilty Gear! Getting reaaaallly close to the monitor and focusing on the edges of the graphics I was very happy with the results. All of the pixels were sharp and clear, colors were solid and uniform... all in all a very nice picture. The only reason I can nitpick is to say it doesn't have that same humming razor sharp edges that the Dreamcast VGA or an arcade monitor has. That said, I'm fairly happy with what I know is a component to VGA conversion. So happy, in fact, that if a true VGA cable is released that the pricing on that peripheral would determine when/if I were to swap it for my VD W2.

The Vdigi VD W2 is not a cheap piece of cable, but with shipping it should only set you back $50 or so (which is about what the official GameCube component cables originally cost). Overall the cable seems to be well worth the purchase price. Longevity of the product and how well it stands up to use is yet to be seen, but based on the solid construction (it really is a thick cable), I think things will turn out alright.

Interview with Henk Nieborg

2008-01-09T12:23:00+09:00

Near the end of 2005 I interviewed Henk Nieborg, one of the greatest pixel artists around. He's been pixelling since the earliest days of the C64, and he's still going strong today - he recently completed all the backgrounds and boss art for Konami's recent DS release, Contra 4. The interview was printed in my book (Amazon.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.com), and is reproduced in its entirety below. I've also included a couple of bonus quotes that didn't make the book. Please enjoy!

Henk Nieborg has been pushing pixels for a very long time, since before mice left the lab and before colour palettes needed two hands to be counted. Back in 1985 Henk could be found "pixeling with my joystick on a black and white TV". Since he couldn't afford his own colour TV, Henk would memorize the Commodore 64 colour palette, draw the images in black and white, then check them on the colour TV in the living room. He used to make pixel art in the early days with Koala Paint and a suzo joystick.

Henk has been the principle artist on many games, all featuring a distinct style, with incredibly lush backgrounds and very detailed sprites. From the very first efforts with the Commodore 64, to his first commercial release on the Commodore Amiga, Henk constantly worked to improve his skill and the results are unparalleled.

Ghost Battle (Amiga)

Ghost Battle was the first published game for Henk, and it garnered considerable praise. It also landed him a full time job with Thalion, an intensely popular but short lived German publisher of computer games. His next game was Lionheart, a game which sold well considering its platform, but not well enough to keep Henk employed with Thalion who, like most publishers of the day, peaked early and soon folded.

Misadventures of Flink (MegaDrive)

The Misadventures of Flink was next, released for the MegaDrive and MegaCD. It featured some of the most impressive graphics ever released for the MegaDrive, with backgrounds and sprites that did astonishing things with the relatively muted palette offered by the hardware. Flink looked great but was released too late in the MegaDrive's life. It wasn't supported well by its publisher and it achieved unremarkable sales.

Lomax mockup (Playstation)

It did, however, land Henk another game deal: Adventures of Lomax. Released by Psygnosis for the Sony Playstation, Lomax was continuing a trend for Henk - games released on platforms that were no longer appropriate targets. When Lomax came out Sony had convinced the world that polygons were the future, sprites were old fashioned, and so Lomax didn't sell well either. The gaming press more or less overlooked this pixel relic released in a bold new polygon world.

Atlantis (GameBoy)

Harry Potter (GameBoy Advance)

Henk shifted his focus to the portables, which continue to be the last place to find significant amounts of pixel art. First with Disney's Atlantis for the GameBoy Color, and later with Harry Potter for the GameBoy Advance, Henk's pixel prowess finally found an appreciative audience. And from there? When he's not pixelling Henk can be found working on textures for 3D games like Harry Potter and Batman Begins. Currently he's working on a new game, a big release for the Playstation 2 and PSP that is, so far, a closely guarded secret.

Henk Speaks:

When developing Flink, Henk describes the process. "I Think there were a few reasons I started drawing everything on a black background, not just on the MegaDrive. First, back in those days I drew most of my gfx on a black background, I just liked that. You could get away with a lot of stuff by fading it into darkness. It's also quite handy when you're dealing with systems like the MegaDrive which didn't give you much memory to play with. I also prefer to draw to blackness because the contrast on the megadrive system was insane, if i would have anti-aliased everything to white i would have probably gone blind."

Asked about the popularity and future of pixels, Henk remains philosphical about their relative unpopularity. "Pixel games being on the big screen could work both ways. More exposure means a bigger market which in my opinion kills a lot of the creativity. Just look around at what happening now with the big game industry. Keeping it small and special means people will appreciate it even more."

Unused Mobile Phone Graphics

Regarding pixel art's resurgence, with portable games and even outside of gaming, Henk thinks "Pixeling is almost regarded as a real art and i think it really deserves it. There will always be pixels one way or another, profitable or not. You still need pixel skills for mobile phone, GBA and Nintendo DS games. Even on next-gen platforms pixel skills are suitable for HUD and icon gfx."

On portables: Most portable gaming is nothing more than a portable version of a console that was already very succesful a couple of years ago in another form. For instance the GBA had a lot in common with the SNES, and the PSP is actually a heavily modified PS1. But still, they're all great platforms with huge potential but no one really took the opportunity to make something really nice on it.

On mobiles: First, I'm really happy with mobile phone game development because it opens up a lot of opportunities again for pixel artists like me. The quality of mobile phone games is getting better and better but there's still a lot of mediocre stuff around. This is also a good development because there might be new talent out there struggling to get into the gaming scene.

Unused Mobile Phone Graphics

I've emailed Henk for his permission to post this interview, and he's graciously given it. He's also agreed to take my abuse for a second set of questions, so I hope to talk to him about the last two years and his recent work on the DS release of Contra 4.

In addition, here are a few choice quotes that didn't make the book:

Regarding Flink
I do still remember because it was a hell of a lot of fun to do that game.
Flink had 12 to 16 frames per animation. I drew one or two of them per day.
I think all of them were done in two weeks time. Yes, I didn't get much
sleep back then. No pay and no sleep, Good old days! ;)

Time to complete one Flink level
A single tileset for the fore- and background took me approx. two to three weeks to pixel. Damn was i slow back then!

Famicom Disk System Manual

2007-11-27T16:37:00+09:00

It's a sad truth that modern manuals don't encourage consumers to learn technical things about the stuff they buy. Back in the day if you bought a home computer it'd have a descirption of every connector, a copy of basic and a brief programming guide. Now you're lucky if there's room to describe the power switch after fifteen pages of epilepsy warnings and fancy icons telling you not to leave your expensive hardware outside in the snow.

The good old days, then.

When Nintendo released their Famicom Disk System they included with every unit two manuals: One with an adult-oriented description of the system, its functionality and so on. They also included a kid-friendly comic that detailed not only how the system should be used and the things you shouldn't do, but also the inner workings of the device. Included were cutaway drawings, explanations of magnetic media, troubleshooting advice, flying space aliens with tails and the obligatory hot foreign woman to ensure the reader was paying attention.

Naturally we couldn't let a gem like this languish in Japanese. We've translated the book and created an English Famicom Disk System Guide. Please, enjoy.

A Short Crysis Review

2007-11-24T18:53:00+09:00

Far Cry was awesome, totally cool, with a wicked setting and solid game beneath the unparalleled graphics. Crysis is the sequel, the game that many people - myself included - had firmly in mind when building a new PC not long ago. Read on for my review... And please, beware of spoilers!I really loved Far Cry. Sneaking around in realistic vegetation was damnably cool, and the tropical island setting was unique and well done. It fell apart at the end, and I've never completed it 'cause somehow I've saved with like five shots left and I'm in a dark lab full of things that want to annihilate me. By the time I got that far I'd had a great time and watched as the game became less and less linear. At the start I had free reign - I could go where I wanted and get things done the way I wanted, but by the end there was only one path.

Crysis, as a sequel to Far Cry, beats it in nearly every way. Visually it's far and away the better game, with graphics that punish my 2-month-old PC so hard it runs a few degrees hotter than it does when idle. That's hot indeed!

This time around you're a US special forces something or other in a 'nano suit' that gives you superhuman strength, speed, armour or cloaking. You can choose one at a time and, like Half Life, you've got a limited time to use 'em while the battery runs out, at which time you've got to shut it off and recharge.

Running around the island bush is dreadfully fun: the graphics are unmatched by any other game yet released, and it's not at all hard to imagine you're really wandering around in the scrub and grass hiding from nasty men with big guns.

If this were a standard review I'd probably talk about the relatively decent voice acting, convincing physics and solid sound. Instead I'm going to cover two things:

1. Playing Crysis is pure bliss. It looks amazing, and the controls are easily grasped and your character in the game does exactly what you want him to. The first three quarters of the game are nearly perfect.

2. The last quarter falls apart more than Far Cry did. You get no more choices: you do what you're told, and if you don't someone will shut off your suit or tell you over and over what you should be doing instead of the more-fun thing you're actually doing.

During the last boss battles I had the crap annoyed out of me by teammates who would repeat the same orders over and over regardless of what I was doing. "You must shoot the cannons!" as I'm shooting the cannons. "Use the special weapon!" which I didn't actually possess. I was several times exhorted to do something while I was lying on the ground, very much dead. The final level scripting is draconian and inflexible, a marked contrast to the unrestrained bliss of the rest of the game.

Have I mentioned how good it looks? It's fucking brilliant.

Most of the game was worth the cost of admission. The last level annoyed me so much I sold the game to a friend 12 hours after I beat it. The distaste was too strong in my mouth to keep it.

I tried multiplayer once, on a level so large that the three of us playing never once saw one another. Screw that, I'll stick with Unreal Tournament.

Xpand Rally - A Brief Review

2007-09-11T08:35:00+09:00

It's a little known secret that I love racing games. Not just any kind of racer though, but the rare breed that strikes a balance between simulation and arcade action. Tokyo Xtreme Racer and Sega Rally for the Dreamcast are two examples. Race, upgrade, race some more. Realistic as I want it to be, with consequences for driving off the road but not so real that I get bogged down in minutae.

The other day, while casting about for something to play, I stumbled across Xpand Rally for the PC, available on Steam for $9.95.

What a bargain. (Read on for screenshots and details!)It's a rock-solid arcade rally game with some great maps and a fun career mode. You start off with a tiny front-wheel-drive Eurocar and, as you start coming to grips with the action, you can start making some significant improvements to the engine, turbo, transmission, suspension, body, etc etc. Racing is as easy as selecting an appropriate ride height, putting the right wheels on and hitting the circuit.

It's a lot like a console game, with a friendly game pad and no need for any complicated keyboard commands.

There are a vew caveats, but none so serious they take away from the joy of this ten dollar game. Techland, the game's developer, has created a fun game with a solid engine and lots of expandability. You can make your own maps, with the included 3D track editor. It's messy and complicated like any 3D modelling, so I won't mess with it, but the tools are there. And despite not having any licensed cars, Xpand Rally allows you to import new models and cars and get the licensed cars of your dreams into the game.

The game doesn't annoy you with in-game music, the engine sounds are not as grating as many other games, and the visual effects are restrained but enjoyable. There's a thriving community forum over on the Xpand Rally site, I think. Most of the links are broken and the forum is completely hosed.

Sega 7-disc Hotel Saturn

2007-09-01T07:49:00+09:00

This one seems to have been lost, I don't know why but no links were found to the page from ... well, anywhere!

So here's an oldie but a goodie: The Sun-Seibu Hotel Saturn 7-game changer!!

Another Site Redesign

2007-08-26T22:18:00+09:00

I just can't help myself some days. In lieu of actual content, here's another new look. I'm very pleased with the way this turned out. Still a few parts to fix, individual article pages are still broken, but the hard part's done.

Here's the intro from Zoom's Phalanx for X68000. This GIF is made from 153 sequential images, captured using animget. The timing is off, I had to adjust the delay for each frame by hand, but it's pretty close.

Banned in China!

2007-08-29T20:13:00+09:00

Add this one to the list of quality-assured awards for NFG Games: Banned in China!

At least, according to the Great Firewall of China tester.

[update] It turns out the GWoC tester doesn't work very well. This site remains accessible to users within China. for now...

PC Engine Modem - Unveiled!

2007-04-09T11:28:00+09:00

According to one Japanese source the PCE Modem, or Tsushin Booster, was released as a prototype to 20-30 PC Engine groups or fans, for monitored testing. After this, up to 100 'final' units were produced before NEC pulled the plug and ordered them destroyed. The 20-30 early units were not recalled, and some of the 100 final units were spared, so with a run of anywhere between 30 and 130, the booster is possibly the rarest production PCE accessory.

Chris Covell has managed to find a PC Engine modem in Japan. He won't say what he paid for it, but it was almost certainly a vast blow to his wallet. It was, however, a blow he took for all of us: he's posted the details for everyone to enjoy. Everything's up there: a look at the software, the documentation, and the hardware itself.

Surprisingly it's a 300-1200 baud device, which at the time (early 1990s) was beyond slow. By this time in the real world 14.4k modems were available, more than ten times faster. Normal modems, however, didn't come with groovy sprite editing software. On the other hand, with a PC and a normal modem you had a keyboard. Programming and communicating with a PC Engine pad was probably not fun for very long. For reference, here's an old PC Engine Yahoo auction I saved.

[UPDATE] An anonymous donor has offered up the Tsushin Tool ROM for download. Grab your own copy!

XCM Component to VGA Review

2007-02-21T12:57:00+09:00

It's astounding as time goes on that popular products, such as the XRGB line, become harder and harder to find. Even older versions. People are wising up to the beautiful picture one can get with a fine upscaling device. The days of the universal composite to VGA converter are happily coming to an end as more and more devices are transcoding component into three colors and some syncs. The question remains, though, pound for pound and dollar for dollar - what's your best investment?Ah, the eternal question: Can something that's $40 treat me as good as something that is $400? Answer: No. Full stop. You think it can, close your web browser and go enjoy the world with your sweet, sweet ignorance. How I envy you...

For everyone else, this question becomes: Is something that's $40 even worth purchasing? Let's find out, shall we!?

The XCM Universal Ypbpr VGA Box.

My reason behind this purchase is very simple. Carrying a long time desire to emulate the wonderful experience of a Dreamcast on a VGA CRT, I seized the opportunity to purchase not only a VGA box, but a component cable for my Nintendo Wii and my non-existent 360 and PS3's. At a retail price of about $40-$50, that makes it a pretty easy pill to swallow if you think of it as $25 for a box and cable. Never the less, even with my frugality and ability to divide by 2... I'm left a little disappointed.

For starters, unlike the XRGB line or even the low-cost component adapter the X2VGA the XCM box does NOT support progressive scan. Now, bearing that in mind... and I didn't before I bought it, foolishly assuming that it would support 480p, any real testing of this box is irrelevant. The colors are good - I guess. The contrast is okay - I guess. The colors don't bleed - I guess. The picture seems clear - although with the interlacing, you've seen much sharper edges. It's almost like it has dot-crawl!

So with that in mind, it makes it really hard for me to review this sucker. At the very least I expected some well defined pixels, and I'm just not gonna get 'em. Whether it's the fault of the box or not can easily be debated.

At the end of the day, I purchased it so I could take my Wii into the office for lunchtime goodtime. And the XCM delivers that promise with a (pro-rated for the cost of a component cable) of about $29 bucks. It's certainly better than any picture you'll get from composite and at least as good as S-Video on a standard set...

So if you're in the market for one or more component cables and have very low expectations... it's not a bad product. It does what it's designed to do - I just wish it was designed to do more. If you have component cables, pass it and pick up a VGA box that's specifically designed to do progressive scan, because 480i is for the birds. When all is said and done, I'm still going to have to buy an XRGB... but the XCM is a passable stop-gap until the time I bite the $400 bullet and never look back.

Sonic the Hedgehog Sprite History

2007-01-02T22:27:00+09:00

A large part of my book was sprite history analysis. I've been posting segments from the book here, and the newest one is now available:

Sonic Sprite History.

Please have a look if that's the sort of thing you like. Also, if you haven't already, check out the Castlevania Sprites and the original History of Mario Sprites.

New Japanese gaming ads

2006-12-31T09:02:00+09:00

I have a weird interest in Japanese commercials, and not those 'zOMFG how funny!' ones that seem totally otherworldly, but normal, every-day commercials. They're fascinating to me because of their differences from what I'm used to in Canadian (and to a lesser extend, Australian) ads. I think they're a fascinating insight into a different culture.

So I record them. I've got over 300 on my server in Japan for everyone to enjoy (if you're into that) but the reason I bring it up here is a recent crop of game ads I recorded.

These are perhaps less interesting culturally, but they're about games so... here they are!

Pink PSP
New PSP Colours
Secret of Mana 4
DS Cooking Generations
DS Chocobo
PS2 Gundam S
Wii Kororinpa
DS DragonQuest
DS Card Fighters

There are over 300 more available!*44 more!
17 good ones!
12 over here!
39 more ads!
11 ads zOMFG!

And finally, here are over a hundred more J-Commercials!

* Never mind that there are only 200 linked from this page, there are 300+ on the server. ...I should really fix link the other 100!

USB Cell + Wiimote Review

2006-12-27T13:51:00+09:00

The ultimate in geek batteries, USB powered AA cells, meets the Nintendo Wiimote head on.If you haven't had a chance to check out USB Cell Batteries then take a second to have a look. Essentially they're rechargeable batteries that you can plug into a standard NiMH charger or a free USB port. They run a little light at 1300mah and a little pricey at $20 for a two pack, but can't be beat for the cool factor. I received 4 of them as presents, so I'm pleased as punch at my out of pocket cost.

Operation is simple, plug it into any powered USB port and the battery will glow green while charging, will flash at 90% and will stop flashing when filled. Directions say batteries take 5 hours to charge but personal experience makes it seem more like 2-3. Like every other battery on the planet, usage will vary depending on device.

I tested one set out on Madden 07 for the Wii. It utilizes both the accelerometer and pointer functions, so it'll drain the batteries as fast as possible. After about 5.5 hours of gameplay I still have 2 bars remaining on my Wiimote (assuming 5 bars = 100%, I should have about 40% remaining). We could probably roughly extrapolate the numbers to about 10 hours of average usage, 7 of power intense usage. Just about what you'd expect from a good set of batteries.

Now, top that off with the fact that you can easily recharge overnight in any USB port and you have, basically, all of your battery troubles cleared up. What's that you say? There's USB ports on the Wii? Right you are! However, the batteries are just a little too big to fit both in there. A trip to the neighborhood $1 store nets you USB extension cords and now you have a Wii that will charge Wiimote batteries.

The only real problems are the price. 4 sets of batteries will cost you $80, which is a tough hit to take considering you can buy a mountain of standard rechargeable batteries for the same amount. Top that off with not always having 8 free USB ports, might make you have to go pick up a USB hub for another $20. So is $100 worth not having to buy batteries for your Wiimote ever (hopefully) again? Not the optimal solution, but a very cool one. Hopefully USB cells will be dropping in price soon so they can compete as a best option. Still, being able to charge Wiimote batteries wherever you are with the system (friend's house, vacation, etc) without having to drag along a battery charger is a fantastic thing. For now, only technophiles need apply.

Alien Crush Re-Review

2006-12-16T10:59:00+09:00

The Turbo Grafx 16 classic revived on the Wii's Virtual Console. It seems awful stupid to be reviewing a game that is over 16 years old - I mean, what could I possibly say that you can't find with a quick Google search? Good question. Only one way to find out...Earlier this week, gamers who pay close attention to this sorta thing were shocked at the release of the venerable Alien Crush on Nintendo's Virtual Console. The reasons for this shock are varied. First and foremost, Alien Crush marks the second pinball title released on the VC in under 1 month of existence. Pinball the NES classic was the first. Personally I'd never have guessed there'd be two pinball titles on the VC period, let alone this quickly. The second part that was shocking (that a TG-16 or video pinball fan could tell you0 is that Alien Crush is one of the better video pin titles around. So to see such wisdom at chosing this title for release this early was a lot for someone like me to handle.

But after having some play time with the game everything that would be expected is true:

1) The title is emulated to perfection. For good or for bad, all of the VC titles play exactly like they do on thier authentic hardware.
2) The game remains an easy to play but challenging to master title. The physics are passable, and certainly good for a game of its era. The ball moves quickly but it's possible to get a good amount of play time every time. All very important factors to good video pinball.
3) The graphics of the game are fair but age has caught up with Alien Crush. It's certainly better looking than NES Pinball, but NES Pinball is so basic and antiquated that it's almost stylish now.

So it's pretty much the game that everyone out there says it to be. You can assume that any review you read for the TG-16 version will hold equally as true for the VC version. Which is a good thing since most review it favorably. Personally, I feel that this is an excellent example of the price of a VC game being reasonable. While any schmo can find a copy of NES Ice Hockey for $1 at n - where n is any random flea market, thrift store or garage sale - Alien Crush nets about $10 on eBay and something similar in your higher end game stores which carry retro systems. Top that off with a good TG-16 running anywhere from $40-$200 (depending on make, model, condition and your location) and it's easy to see why the VC version is a great solution for anyone interested in picking up a little intergalactic Geiger-esque pinball.

So how do you review a 16 year old game? Let people know it's as good as the original and well worth the purchase. See?

Nectaris on Wii VC

2006-12-14T14:00:00+09:00

NFG's Patron Saint of Strategy Games, Military Madness, hits stateside next week.

Audible waves of angst from Australia expected to coincide.According to a barely cryptic message on the Hudson forums, Wii owners will soon be blessed with Nectaris on the Virtual Console. While many, myself included, hold the cost of the Virtual Console games to be overpriced - $6 is a very reasonable sum for one of the best strategy games around. This marks the second week in a row where the TG-16 title has been a well chosen fan favorite, previous selection is the pinball classic Alien Crush.

At this current rate it seems the console getting the most proper attention is the TG-16 and exciting times are ahead.

Nintendo Wii: Kororinpa Review

2006-12-10T10:38:00+09:00

One game that gets too little press in the Wii's launch lineup is the Japan-only release of Kororinpa from Hudson.

Bottom line: It's a great 3D Cameltry. Read the Review.

Send Anonymous Email To My Wii

2006-12-14T11:54:00+09:00

Wiimail at you!While the Wii is in its infancy, people sending cute little messages to one another is still a good deal of fun. The only problem is the hoops that Nintendo makes you jump through in order to communicate with other people (registering each other's "friend code" or email registration). So as an experiment, I've set up a webpage where you can send my own personal Wii a message anonymously and - obviously - without the need for a Wii yourself.

Blaine's Wiimail

Check it out. I'll be posting any particularly interesting or amusing missives I receive.

Castlevania Sprites!

2006-11-17T16:49:00+09:00

As some of you might remember, after writing my Mario Sprites article I was given the opportunity to write a book focusing on video game sprites. Included in the book were several game sprite histories like the Mario one. One of them is Castlevania.

I've put it online, along with some updates and what I hope are slightly better captions describing the sprite sources. Included is every pre-DS 2D castlevania main character released from 1986 to 2003. They're divided into six distinct groups, more or less divided by hardware era. In addition there are the ugly-vanias, the ports to platforms that might better have been left ignored.

Please have a look!

Trials and Tribulations

2006-11-06T08:53:00+09:00

The other day I had a hankering for some Street Fighter.

I don't actually have Street Fighter for any consoles, so my options were limited to emulation or dragging out some arcade gear and playing it for reals. I decided on the latter - emulation doesn't compare to the real thing, and after all, I'm hardcore.

And by hardcore I mean stupid. Read on...When I moved from Japan to Australia, I brought more than 50 large boxes of games, consoles and controllers with me. It's a ludicrous amount of stuff, and though it pleases me to have it all, it's a massive pain in the ass to actually dig out anything when I want to use it. One room of our house is devoted to storing this stuff, and there are still some 40 unpacked boxes in there. All I wanted to do was play Street Fighter, right? Easy!

I knew exactly where my CPS Changer was, so I busted it out quickly. So far so good.

It took me a lot longer to find my CPSC copy of Street Fighter Zero. It was in a dark, unused corner of the room. One hour gone.

Now, where's my Capcom Power Stick? Oh, yeah, here it is. (Another half hour goes by)

And now, finally, I put it all together. PCB box, add fingerboard, dig out Svideo cable, power, joystick, turn on the TV...

Huh, the screen skips and rolls every ten seconds or so. Dang. WTF, it makes it really hard to hadoken someone's ass when the TV scrambles your view! And lo! The A button doesn't work. No weak punch for me.

Cue another hour's fiddling while I take apart the stick, open up the PCB case, clean all the contacts, reassemble... Still doesn't work. Fuckit, I'm going to bed.

Next day I have a revelation - the fingerboard on the CPS Changer has a notch in it, like all good JAMMA PCBs should, but there's no key in the female plug, so I've installed it backwards. The notch is on the A button's pin, so that's solved.

But... Street Fighter Zero really sucks. And the screen still rolls.

So for whatever reason, it seemed a good idea at the time, I dragged out some CPS2 games - Super Street Fighter 2 and Vampire Savior. I took apart the CPS Changer and plugged it in to the CPS2 board (It won't normally fit). Then I remember - oh yeah, the CPS2 uses an extra connector for the kick buttons. Sooo... I can only punch. And if I accidentally press hard-kick, the game resets.

And the screen still rolls.

So I go hunting for the crappy JAMMA adaptor I made in Japan out of spare parts. Another hour gone as I locate the power supply, harness and joystick.

It's midnight, and I've gotta work in the morning. I still haven't played anything for more than 2 minutes. Screw this, I'm going to bed.

Emulation's looking better all the time.

DS University #1: Cooking Mama DS Review

2006-10-19T07:40:00+09:00

The avenues of education are various. Some people are Book Smart, some are Street Smart, some are a delightful combination of both. Unfortunately, any manner of smart person is sometimes hard to find. We here at NFGgames.com would like to present you with a new, bester type of smarty - Video Game Smart. Welcome to DS University...

DS University is the tongue-in-cheek motif for my next set of game reviews. DSU will show you everything you can learn from the great variety of vocationally themed DS games. The first course (pun) is Culinary Arts, courtesy of Cooking Mama.

The subject matter found in Cooking Mama is rarely seen in games outside of Japan. While titles based on culinary prowess and restaurant ownership are typical fare in Akihabara, video games about chopping onions aren't going to be clogging the shelves of neighborhood retailers in the West. This alone makes Cooking Mama stand out. Combine that with equal parts clever mini-games and ginsu-sharp controls and you'll find yourself dining on a delicious and affordable game - albeit one that may leave you hungry in a few hours.

Cooking Mama is bundle of cooking based mini-games. You'll do everything from peeling potatos, slicing beef, grating raddish, chopping carrots to deep frying dumplings and ripping the heads off of prawns. Utilizing your stylus and microphone, you'll use your DS to prepare delectible food - served up for the grading. Every round of the game is set up like a recipie for a particular type of food. You can select which dish you want to make next.

Each portion of the recipie is broken down into a little mini-game related to making that recipie, for which you'll recieve a grade. Do well and you'll make Mama happy. Do poorly and Mama will have to clean up your mess for you. Finish each section with a high enough score and you just might win yourself a gold medal.

Complete recipies to unlock and modify new recipies, 76 total...All for the relentless task master named "Mama". And there in lies one of the main problems with Cooking Mama - there is no story. There's no objective why you're making all these dishes. Aside from the love and adoration for Mama, there's no specific reason why you should care that your octopus dumplings are a mere 70 in Mama's book. Had you some sort of rival (as japanese story tellers are wont to do) and you had to complete certain dishes at a certain score in order to defeat them, then the overall story of the game would be a more compelling reason to seek perfection. The ability to unlock even greater master recipies would have been nice too. But as it is, simply passing the test is more than enough to progress through the game. No distinction is made between a merely standard omlette and a perfectly executed burger. Top that off with no real multiplayer, there's not a lot to do after playing through once. Although, playing the game side-by-side with another person does actually make for a fun time, it doesn't really have the staying power that an official 2-player mode might offer.

You do have the ability to hone and perfect individual techniques like chopping and slicing in the Skills mode, but achieving a gold metal in all of these progressively harder mini-games might not be everyone's idea of fun.

That said the game itself plays flawlessly, while repetative none of the steps ever feel mundane. The controls are very responsive and almost to a letter, all of the minigames are fun and clever. There's a small handful of 'dummy' games like "Set The Clock To 10!" which you press a 1 and then a 0 on a digital keypad. For the most part the mini-games are clever, quick and frantic. The mini-games in Cooking Mama offer you all the fun you'd find in a Wario Ware title, with nowhere near the bizzare aftertaste (Whether that's good or bad is debatable). The gameplay is tight from top to bottom.

Graphically the game is super clean 2D graphics. Everything is bright, colorful and well animated. What little parts of the game are realtime 3D are blended almost seemlessly into the remainder of the hand drawn sprites. The title certainly doesn't push the DS to the extremes, but for my tastes 2D graphics with a high polish will always be more satisfying then barely-making it 3D. The lovingly crafted pixel art chirping along at a velvety smooth pace is pure mana for sprite lovers.

Surprisingly, one of the nicer elements of the game's presentation is Cooking Mama's sound effects. Every action you perform is accompanied by an appropriate sound bite, delivered in a crisp and clear audio. I still can't tell if the game actually uses different sounds when you're cutting different items, or if it's just my imagination. In either case, the effect is convincing and well delivered.

Musically the game is a little on the repetitive side, with a quirky snappy little soundtrack that seems to accompany everything you do.While you won't be purchasing the soundtrack anytime soon, you probably won't hate it so much as to turn it off. In the end the music is unremarkable background dressing in the best way possible. Much the same way I'd rather have finely crafted 2D graphics over average 3D, I'd much rather that if the musical score isn't going to truely enhance the project... I'd just as soon you'd keep it off in the peripherary.

Cooking Mama has a very well defined sense of style. All of the elements of presentation tie in well together. While none of them individually makes or breaks the game, they do an excellent job of supporting the title and allowing the gameplay to shine through. I'm more than a little interested in seeing how well all of these make the transition to the Wii and 3D. Clear and clean 2D is pretty easy to do on a portable LCD screen, the 3D graphics may easily wind up detracting from the title if they are a little rough around the edges. Cooking Mama doesn't have the most charisma of all the games out there, but she does have her own little groove working.

One of my favorite additions is present in the game, namely the ability to upload a demo copy of the game to someone else with a DS. While I'm sure I'm in the minority on this, I've used this function on more than one occasion with other DS games and I've used it at least once speciffically with Cooking Mama. Aside from that it's pretty much your basic packaging from the box to the manual. I'd have loved a little Mama keychain or wrist strap, but you can't ever penalize a game for not having these rare perks. Particularly for a budget title.

Which is actually one of Cooking Mama's strongest points. While you'll often notice the game get's panned for it's lack of depth, you'll also notice that more often than not people love it despite it's somewhat shallow game play. The fact that the game was released as a $19.99 title really allows it to appeal to a larger audience. In this day and age of cookie cutter game play, sometimes the only places where you'll find innovation is in the budget title realms. It's very hard to do something totally out of the ordinary and then attempt to go penny for penny with some of the big boys of gaming. Luckily, Cooking Mama never pretends to be anything it's not. It's a fantastically fun (and again, short) game and they don't attempt to drag you through the ringer for it. While many video games are sold at a $60 price point, and many DS games are sold at the $36 premium it's a lot easier to take a flyer on an out-there game idea like Cooking Mama when it's costing you less than a trip to the movie theater. This is a trend I certainly hope will continue.

It doesn't take much to get you hooked on Cooking Mama, although you might find yourself running out of game long before your appetite is satisfied.

Gameplay:

Presentation:

Product:

Buy Cooking Mama At Play-Asia.com

New Super Mario Bros rant

2006-08-30T00:00:00+09:00

A very good friend has written a brief NSMB rant. He says what I wanted to say and didn't get around to.

My favourite quote: "The mentality of everyone-is-a-winner might be appropriate within the confines of a preschool, however, being both an adult and a dedicated gamer, the only thing afforded by the hollow victories was apathy and cynicism". Check it out.

Nectaris for Verizon

2006-08-04T17:25:00+09:00

Forum regular Blaine has posted a review of Verizon's new cellular title, the amazing Nectaris. If you can't have Nectaris on the DS you can have it on your cellphone.

Read the review!

The Atari Curse: Part 4

2006-06-15T21:48:00+09:00

The Atari name is a curse. Atari were kings of the world back in the day, but Time Warner bought Atari, and squandered it all. That's part one. Then the Tramiels, kicked out of Commodore, bought Atari and drove it into the ground, more intent on stock manipulation than releasing quality products. That's part two. Hasbro was part three, they couldn't turn a profit with Atari's unbelievable IP after paying a paltry five million for the name and the back catalogue.

And then Infogrames bought the marque, and look where they are now: $67 million in the red this year. Bruno Bonnell explains the strategy to keep Atari sucking harder than a black hole:

"The Atari brand has stood for innovation and pioneering spirit for more than 30 years. [...] we must recapture what made Atari an iconic brand. [...] we will focus our efforts on established franchises, new major motion picture licensed IP with significant marketing campaigns..."

That's exactly right, Bruno: recapturing innovation and the pioneering spirit requires sequels, licensed crap, and enough advertising to sell your shitty games to the unwary. Were you always this stupid or is it the Atari curse that makes you a moron?

Sony: Crack Smokers

2006-03-16T16:01:00+09:00

According to GamesIndustry our friends at Sony - who've long been failing to emulate Nintendo's hype mastery - have made another mind-bogglingly stupid announcement. They're claiming they'll shift six million PS3 consoles in four months.

Does anyone believe this crap?

Warning: Ranting ahead.Not three weeks ago they were admantly proclaiming a spring 2006 launch, but now it's November, according to the Nihon Keizai Newspaper (No article link, it's behind a paywall). Sony's Kutaragi has tried to soften the price blow by scaremongering: "It'll be expensive", but this is obviously an attempt to make people happy with the marginally-more-than-normal launch price. First it had no harddrive, but now it does, so Sony can compete with Microsoft, offering a home media server and downloadable... Downloadable what, exactly? PS1 games? Um, downloading massive CDs of content isn't remotely a mass-market idea yet. The rate of broadband penetration increase isn't nearly high enough to count on the sort of bandwidth required. Sony'll have to create a whole new library. Their in-house back catalogue's laughable anyway.

And now, they're claiming six million. They'll make a million a month, and sell six million in four months. Wait, that's two million more than they're making, but maybe they're just pulling numbers out of a hat. Every console Sony's launched has been fraught with shortages (in fact most consoles are). Sony promised to launch the PSP globally, but took nine months to roll it out in three regions.

Sony, in short, is talking out their ass.

And the PS3 is ugly. Real ugly. The console's a FMTowns Marty with a chunk missing, and the controller's a clone of the Alps pad from 1996. Frankly I'm bored of the whole affair, and I'm tired of Sony's lies.

Vodafone useless, pulls out of Japan

2006-03-06T09:02:00+09:00

It would seem Vodafone have no idea WTF they're doing in Japan. They were consistently innovating, making giant advances with the assistance of their hardware partners (mostly Sharp, but also Toshiba, Sanyo and a handful of others) and offering many features well in advance of other carriers. Docomo gets all the press overseas, but Vodafone was first with great family pricing, 2-megapixel cameras and a unified gaming structure: There are only 4 levels of gaming for Japanese Vodafones, where trying to find compatible games on Docomo is a bit of a minefield.

But I digress.

It would seem that Vodafone K.K., the Japanese arm, simply couldn't or wouldn't communicate with the rest of Vodafone's global operation, and none of the world-class phones, customer-first philosophy or affordable pricing made it out to the rest of us. Vodafone worldwide is an evil giant, with the same shitty phones as everyone else, and the same shitty rates. Vodafone is, it would seem, better at colluding with its enemies, the other carriers, than it is with its purported partner in Japan.The newest vodafone unit, the Sharp 904-SH, is like a mini deity. Check out this feature list: VGA screen, Bluetooth with a neat new 'near chat', letting you talk to people within a ten metre radius, 3.2 megapixel camera (featuring an incredible zoom mechanism, with 5 lenses!), optical zoom, motion sensor gaming, Felica e-payment chip, 3D sound, face recognition, 3G, GPS, SD card, W-CDMA + GSM, USB, infrared, video output, Flash animation, and QR code reading capability.

The top of the line Motorola does, let's see, less than half that, and costs twice as much. Japanese manufacturers, combined, have less than a 10% market shar of worldwide phone sales. Vodafone was uniquely positioned, as the only Japanese carrier, to launch these amazing phones - most of which were already running in 100% English - worldwide.

They didn't.

So, as far as I'm concerned, they deserve to lose Japan. They squandered the resource, fuck 'em. Not being able to take advantage of these kinds of capabilities speaks of nigh criminal incompetence. SoftBank, a large ISP and publisher, will be buying what's left of Vodafone in Japan. They can't possibly do worse than Vodafone themselves did. With luck they'll change their name back to J-Phone, and forget this nasty little incident ever happened.

The Samsung Saturn Revisited

2006-02-07T18:59:00+09:00

You may remember an older writeup I did on the elusive, nearly mythical Samsung Saturn. I recently received a pair of additional units, and after having had a look at them there are definitely new things to learn.

The two biggest things of interest are:
1. Not all of them have the Japanese-language option disabled from the boot menu, and
2. Either no one in Korea could refrain from opening their systems and mucking around with, and losing, the innards, or Sega foisted some pretty shoddy gear on poor Samsung. All three are missing parts and/or screws.

I've started a new page detailing some of the findings on the wiki.

On DRM and other madness

2006-01-19T10:50:00+09:00

There's not really any question that 'the industry' (Pick one) is way off base with this whole DRM crusade. Digital means that only one un-restricted copy needs to exist and then anyone can make a copy of THAT file, and everyone who paid for a legitimate, restricted copy now owns something less useful than the pirated version.

Given that you pay more and get less, why would anyone do it? I sure as hell won't - there's not a signle piece of restricted-use content (music-wise, anyway) on my harddrive.

This topic comes about as a result of this forum thread. A quote from a post I made:

My problem with DRM is twofold:

1. I hate real CDs. I like their durability and their quality, but when I move or travel I curse their very existence. Heavy, and not very data-dense. It takes a 20kg pile of CDs to equal my 300g music player stuffed full of OGG files. And this is where the idea falls down. Copyright nazis would freak out if they found 2,000 audio files on my harddrive, unless I could prove I bought them. Having to lug around heavy, tangible proof is a PITA. What about the rips I made of CDs I've since thrown away? Do I have to delete them now? Bullshit, I say. The whole idea of ownership in a digital age needs to be completely re-thought.

2. Don't limit me. Fuck off, I bought it, I own it. NONE of these limits stop actual pirates. They ONLY harm legitimate purchasers. This goes for showing "Don't steal movies!" to people in the theatre too, it's fucking insulting.

Electroplankton Review

2006-02-07T19:38:00+09:00

I think Electroplankton sucks. There, I've said it. Read the review if you want to know why I think this.

QRCode code update

2006-01-08T13:25:00+09:00

Swetake has announced that there is a security issue in his QRCode generating PHP script. Since I used his code extensively throughout my experiments with the QRCode maker as well as the link you see on the left column I had to update.

What kind of sucked is that I made the generator years ago and had completely forgotten in the meantime how I put it together. Swetake's script is very easy to implement, but I had made significant changesto it.

The code itself didn't change very much, I'd hardwired a few settings to streamline the process, but the QRCode generator was made, with the help of a very good friend, with a lot of javascript. I don't know javascript at all, so I had to reverse engineer this code. I sorted that out and figured out where the script was sending the data: to another short script that parsed the input and sorted it into the proper syntax for swetake's script.

For some reason it just wouldn't work when I replaced the old script with the new version.

After pounding my head against it for two days and grasping at all kinds of straws I found that by rearranging a few lines I could make it work happily. I made so many changes and tweaks that I'm not sure exactly what the problem was, but now it works and it's not a security risk.

Whew!!

On Microsoft and DRM.

2006-01-08T13:26:00+09:00

(With apologies, this started as a 'damn Microsoft...' rant, and turned into a bit of an anti-DRM sermon)

In light of some recent news (Microsoft is essentially killing OpenGL, either 'cause it's too hard to implement or because they didn't invent it...) I was thinking back about Microsoft's history, and I was wondering... Why does anyone with a brain or a sense of self-preservation support them, or any other company that seeks to lock us in?Microsoft got their start by writing a BASIC program for IBM, and by buying a CP/M clone that was just different enough from the software it copied to be considered legal. This set the stage for behaviour that was alternately brilliant and borderline criminal. In many cases, such as Microsoft's outright theft of Stac Technologies 'Stacker' software, they actually were proven to be illegal. This isn't isolated behaviour, Microsoft's history is littered with the husks of companies it's bought out or ripped off. This isn't really anything more than normal cutthroat business procedure, but it brings me to my point.

Microsoft only innovates when they have to. Like many monopolies they reach their all-conquering pinnacle and then stop. Explorer stagnated until Firefox/Mozilla (and my favourite scrappy browser, Opera) started to kick its ass. This can't be good for us, not for progress as a whole.

Microsoft wants control, so that they can lock you in to their products. Then they can stop innovating and rake in the profits without actually working to earn them. Consider Windows Media: There are dozens of free formats out there, and Windows typically ships with applications to convert your media to Windows Media (WMV or WMA). There are no free apps to get OUT of this format - Microsoft threatens to annihilate any free apps that work with WMV formats through legal action. Easy-in, no-out is their preferred modus opperandi, and while again you can argue, to some extent correctly, that this is just normal business, it's not good for US.

Their new operating system is dabbling with content control so severe that it will dictate what kind of monitor you can use. If you don't use a MS-approved monitor it will cripple your video quality.

I can accept that MS' tactics are smart, but they're not good. Not good for consumers, not good for MS' partners, and not good for technological progression. Throw open the gates and let the competition begin in earnest, I say. Break open the DRM and make them fight for their dollars. No company, and this goes for Microsoft, the RIAA and MPAA and many more, deserves my money. They have to bust ass to get me to part with it.

It's a proven fact that people will pay more for unlocked technology. I went way out of my way to buy a portable music player that plays .ogg files - a free, better alternative to the MP3 format device makers need to pay for. I went to Hong Kong and bought a region-free DVD player, 'cause I like to import DVDs. I chip my consoles, often at no small cost, so that I don't have to be locked into one or another region's price-fixing scheme. I bought a phone that lets me up- and down-load my own media without restriction. My wife's phone is unlocked so that she can use it overseas, and she paid a lot for the privelege.

Give us the tools to do what we want. Stop locking us in to your bullshit pay-per-use schemes. My phone is locked to the 3 network, and their online content is the typical ridiculous shit all cellular companies think we want. Live 'Big Brother' coverage, horoscopes, sports scores, ringtones and really bad games. They think we're going to pay for this shit, and to some extent we do. I can guarantee you however that the first cellular company to unlock their gear and make it easier for people to create the content is going to profit big-time from the sudden massive boost in network usage. Consider Google's massive popularity. Free apps, free tools, free APIs so we can access their services and run amok in any way we see fit. Consider Linux' rise to popularity, on the backs of insane people working their ass off for free because they can and because they like to create things.

Stop locking us down and set us free. Create a good product and we'll give you our money with a smile (and come back for more). Keep locking us in and we're going to be doing everything in our power to get away from you at the earliest opportunity. We're all of us creative people. We're not thieves or pirates or, worse, consumers . We want to create and share, and companies that let us, with good and easy products, are gonna get some loyal followers. But don't change your mind later, we'll be displeased.

That is all, carry on.

Space Invaders DS Review

2006-02-05T19:30:00+09:00

It's new, I bought it, it sucks. Here's why.

Meteos Review

2006-02-05T19:30:00+09:00

I should know better than to post updates at 4am, but here it is, my Meteos review.

PacPix Review

2006-02-05T19:38:00+09:00

As promised, one Nintendo DS PacPix Review.

3x Galaga Comparison (plus!)

2007-08-26T19:58:00+09:00

I did a comparison of all three of Namco's Galaga '88 ports: PC Engine, X68000 and Arcade. If you like, you can click here.

I picked up PacPix and Meteos for Nintendo's DS yesterday, and there'll be a review of both very soon. Initial impressions: PacPix is really well done, challenging and varied, but so far I can't find teh fun. Meteos, which scored 38/40 in Famitsu (astonishingly high) completely baffles me. I understand how it works, but it seems so preposterously limited. If the official videos weren't so frenetic I might be able to figure out what I'm missing...

Namco Museum for PSP Review

2006-02-15T08:08:00+09:00

I picked up Namco Museum for the PSP today, primarily because I'm an idiot and can't find a reason not to buy games I've already purchased four times already. I wrote a review.

And for no good reason I put together a visual wish list of six games I really want to see on the PSP. I guarantee there's some surprises in there.

Catch! Touch! Yoshi!

2006-02-15T08:06:00+09:00

I've put up a review for Nintendo's newest DS release. It might as well be the first DS game, as the rest were ports or games that hardly required the stylus.

Catch! Touch! Yoshi!

Sony acknowledges PSP faults.. No, they don't.

2006-02-15T07:46:00+09:00

You might remember my recent harsh appraisal of Sony's PSP. According to a GameSpot article the head of Sony Computer Entertainment, Ken Kutaragi, said only .6% of the PSPs sold have been returned, and that people complaining about the buttons are overreacting to intentional design choices.

Which completely dodges the issue of defective units where the buttons don't just feel different but actually hit the screen preventing comfortable use.

This is an acknowledgement of nothing, Sony's just dodging the question. GameSpot's article only serves to help gloss over the significant variance in Sony's manufacturing process which often results in very unsatisfactory user experiences.

Happily my unit, purchased only ten days ago, works fine - but I've used units that don't, and I know people who have imported one and are stuck with it. Sony's non-acknowledgement serves no one but Sony.

Two rare things for your enjoy.

2006-02-15T07:45:00+09:00

Recently someone auctioned off a prototype PC Engine modem on Yahoo's Japanese auction site. This is the second one I've seen, but the first with software. The PCE modem was never released, and according to this auction only one hundred units were made. Check out this image of the modem and a black PC Engine. And in case you're wondering what something like this sells for, now you know.

In other news, I picked up an X68000 game no one's ever seen before. It's called Shoot Range and it's made by a company and producer no one's ever heard of. The box has some neat screenshots on the back and it also looks cool in-game. It's basically a hex-grid sim with cute units and a nice coherent design, but instead of just setting your icons against theirs, you have to hit their vital spots in a Battleship-style crapshoot. Except for a rather old-fashioned, unrefined interface it's quite an interesting take on the military strategy genre.

Update! Found some more info on Shoot Range, as well as some other rare X68000 softs. Have a look.

Nintendo's DS: An NFG Review

2006-02-15T07:41:00+09:00

After writing up all the things that went wrong with the PSP a few people asked what I thought about the DS.

The bottom line: Nintendo's DS is far better designed and constructed. Never mind the specs and features and games, the DS hardware isn't as flawed as the PSP.

Read on for details.

As an interesting aside, a little birdy told me a Nintendo PR flack, when pressed about the GBA cart slot in DS game cases, mumbled something about the DS being able to access both the DS and GBA carts at the same time, and that there are plans for expansion cards for the GBA slot with software in the DS slot. Therefore you might conceivably want to keep your GBA-shaped expansion cart with the DS games. Therefore, two slots.

Now if only there were good DS games to play...

Sony's PSP: A review

2004-12-18T10:38:00+09:00

Sony's PSP has been out nearly a week now and after playing it for a while I have to say I'm hugely disappointed in it. The two games I picked up, Ridge Racers and Lumines are really quite cool, Lumines especially, but the hardware is total ass.

The D-pad catches on the LCD inside the system. The discs have no sliding cover so are partially unprotected (and this is right where yout thumb goes when you remove it from the case!). The door doesn't close flush with the case. If you twist it (A lot, it's hard to do) you can cause the disc to eject and fly out of the machine.

All this and more for the import friendly price of $500+, or $250 if you live in Japan. Check out my review.

Sony's PSP: Reviewed

2006-02-15T07:40:00+09:00

So the PSP has launched and after a crazy adventure I managed to score one. Four days later the lineup for Nintendo DS units at my local Toys R Us was five times longer than the lineup for Sony's PSP. A harbinger of the future perhaps? For all the fervent interest in the PSP it would seem that they didn't try really hard to make a product people might actually enjoy using, so much as they made a tech demo that impresses journalists and looks good under glass.

Read on for the gory details.

ATMs + Headphones

2004-11-11T19:52:00+09:00

Yesterday we went out for sushi lunch and we realized after we'd eaten that we had no money to pay. We had tried to get cash from a 24-hour ATM the night before, but in Japan the 24 machines don't dispense cash 24 hours a day. Yay! I ended up being collateral while Zumi ran to a bank machine to get some lunch money.

While on our way to the airport I picked up a pair of Sony's new MDR-NC11A noise-cancelling headphones. I've always wanted some noise cancelling headphones, every time I take a trip on a plane I think "Fuck, this might be tolerable with some noise cancelling headphones!"

And how do they work, you ask?Pretty well, actually, with some caveats.

The headphones are pretty complicated. Between the normal headphone plug and the earbuds there's a triangular module with a passive volume trimmer, shirt clip and on/off button. Into this you can shove any standard AAA battery, which powers the active noise cancellation. The earbuds include little microphones to pick up background sounds and these sounds are sent back to the triangle module where they're magically eliminated before being sent back to your ears. I thought it couldn't possibly be effective, but I bought a pair anyway. I'd probably have gone for the over-ear model but they didn't have any at the time.

The unique soft plastic earbuds nestle a lot deeper in your ear than a normal one might, and they completely seal off the outer ear canal. This alone accounts for about 80% of the noise reduction you're likely to experience, it's just astonishing how well it works with the noise cancelling turned off. With the noise cancelling activated there's a further reduction in background noise, but it does add a fairly noticable hiss.

First the good news: there's two unexpected bonuses to using these headphones, there's almost no outside-ear noise leakage, and bass response is astonishing! Not only will you not piss off everyone else on the train while you deafen yourself, the canal-plugging design provides amazing bass transfer, totally unlike any headphone I've ever used. Whatever your musical poison these headphones provide far, far more low-end love than any I've ever seen.

When turning the noise cancelling on outside sounds are reduced, but not really to such a level that you might say to your friend "Wow!". Instead I found myself thinking "Hmm.." and pondering the $100 hole in my wallet. What's quite strange is that when the noise cancelling had been on for a while I noticed a marked increase in background noise when I turned it off. Whether this is because the headphones take a while to 'warm up' to the job or because of other, unfathomable reasons, I can't be sure.

The shape, design and material of the earbuds make these babies totally mandatory for me on any future airline trip. After some twenty two hours in various planes last month I'm prepared to say that there's no way I'm flying again without them. It's totally possible to enjoy all kinds of music, at surprisingly low volumes, in nearly complete peace. The benefit of the noise cancelling is debatable, as I said I found the increase in noise to be greater after they'd been on for a while, but the initial noise dampening effect when they're switched on is unimpressive.

There's one final caveat: These headphones are useless for use in quiet environments. When you plug your ear canal with anything, be it your fingers, these earbuds or chewing gum, every noise in your head becomes magnified. Breathing, chewing, swallowing - these activities will make you insane if you use the headphones in a quiet room. You can compensate by turning them up loud, but there's no way I could use them at low volumes.

So, if you want headphones for a noisy environment, or want to be able to listen to loud music with incredible bass and no noise leakage, these are unquestionably worth the money. Thumbs up, kids!

Baldr Force EXE: Pocket Review

2006-02-15T07:39:00+09:00

I picked up Baldr Force EXE from Sega recently. It's the latest Dreamcast release and based on the demo I played in Akihabara the other day, it's a top-down button mashing robot combat-fest in high-res, featuring 16-bit gameplay and wicked graphic enhancements.

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