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Posted by Tim.

Vote for a Drag Tag Smash Review

Help support SmashMouth Games by voting to have Drag Tag Smash reviewed on Appspy.com.

Follow this link http://www.appspy.com/drag-tag-smash-review to vote today! (Only takes 15 seconds!)



Posted by Tim.

Nintendo 3DS and I saw It!

That’s right I saw a Nintendo 3DS first hand last weekend at a promo event at the Cube Gallery in Manchester. The event featured real life Street Fighter and Resident Evil stunts plus footage of games at launch and in development.

You can check out these snippets in super low quality video camera footage (sorry) on our YouTube page.

Real Life Street Fighter:

Managed to get the best bit of this brilliant, ridiculous fight.

Real Life Resident Evil:

Shot in 'Cloverfield' stlye.

Nintendo 3DS Game Line-up:

Sorry it cuts off short, my phone ran out of memory :(.

From the line-up of games on release the majority are the typical Nintendo brand and re-made games currently out. Now this isn’t a bad thing because it’s safer to sell games people know and love, see what the reactions are then bring in all the original titles later down the line. The only original title there that Zuby saw was Kid Icarus and although I didn’t play the game, he told me that it was brilliant.

I was on Street Fighter 4 3D, which was very cool. Simplified gameplay for casual users yet still challenging enough like the console version. New camera perspective was interesting and working very well with the 3D effect. My only main criticism from a console to handheld perspective of the game was that I couldn’t perform any special attacks from the known button combinations. Instead I had to resort to the buttons on the touch screen, which when pressed would carry out the move. I don’t know if this was my lack of skill or if it was just designed that way, but in any case it’s definitely a game you should get for a launch title ;).

There was also Resident Evil Mercenaries which simply put was the actual ‘Mercenaries’ mode you got from the Resident Evil 4 game. For originality it’s a no, but that didn’t stop the game looking mighty impressive in 3D and the controls were surprisingly good. There were few instances where the camera decided to play stupid, but overall another good game.

After that I got on to Ridge Racer and Pilot Wings, which there was a slight problem. For me when I got to these games, the 3D effect on the avatar being in the middle caused me to go cross-eyed and distracting me from the game. Adjusting the slider down a bit did help, but the 3D effect became minimal and otherwise pointless, so I turned it off. Now this was just me so whether or not this happens with other people I don’t know, but for me it made the whole 3D effect redundant. Still the game’s were simple and typically designed for a drifting and flying game and were otherwise o.k. to play.

Now there were only 30min sessions with the console so for the last 10mins I checked out the other 3DS capabilities. The camera included simple mini games where after you took the picture of someone’s face, they became the enemy in a simple point-and-shoot game. This was a revival of the classic Gameboy Camera which if anyone owned probably knows how much of a laugh you can get from it. The Augmented reality was o.k. (I guess), but I’ve seen loads of augmented reality before, so this to me was another version of the technology. However this seemed to be applied in a more accessible manner so perhaps future games could apply this as a standard mechanic, who knows. Other cool demonstrations included live TV broadcasting in 3D and 3D films, which they didn’t show, but included big names such as Disney and Dreamworks.

All in all the Nintendo 3DS has been better than my first expectations, however I personally don’t think I’ll rush out and get one just yet. If more original titles come out or a price drop is on the horizon, then that might tempt me to get one.

If you have a different view of the Nintendo 3DS then be sure to post a comment :).

Posted by Tim.

We got Openfeint!

It was a struggle last night with internet problems, but it’s almost ready. Openfeint has been integrated into DTS and now it’s at a stage of testing and adjusting numbers for achievements.

Here's a few screen shots...

Annoyingly this is the first time I want to play DTS more than ever now because of the addition of worldwide score boards.

I need to decide now if I should get an iPhone 4 or perhaps settle for the latest iPod Touch, hmm...

Posted by Tim.

Sony vs. the Pirates

I can imagine anyone who follows gaming news has come across the whole Playstation 3 hacking issue, but now it would seem the console you own may not actually be your own. This article on gamesindustry.biz (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-01-28-whats-mine-is-theirs-article) describes how apparently the disclaimer that appears for the Playstation Network (which probably 99% of us don’t read) includes some sort of clause where Sony can automatically ban your account or ‘brick’ your console when they please. Now this is also partly because when you purchased your console and thought you owned everything on it, turns out that Sony have the right to modify, add and remove stuff on the console at will whenever it releases updates. Now you think you just won’t do an update, but that’s where Sony gets you by forcing you to update, or refuse access to the online store and other multiplayer options. In terms of being banned this can apparently be caused by being a better player than everyone else...weird I know.

Not that Sony is out targeting everyone, but apparently such events will happen when you’re using offensive or abusive language which is fair enough. However one thing that is a bit unfair is when someone reports you for minor upsets like “taking all the ammo”. Now I’m yet to meet someone who was banned for playing a game better than everyone else, but when I do I’ll be sure to laugh-out-loud :P. Now as for how long you’re banned for is a mystery, but apparently the time is decided by Sony themselves, so for anyone playing a lot of online PS3 games and they end up getting banned there’s always Xbox 360 you can go to...I’m just saying.

Honestly though when it comes to the piracy thing it’s such a long debated battle that to me it has no definitive answer (like saying which is better, pie or cake). I can see what Sony are trying to do and on one hand people are “taking advantage” of what the Playstation can do, which Sony is trying to put a stop to. On the other hand, the view of “ownership” seen by many people is that when you pay for something, you own it to do whatever you like, and if that means hacking it to turn it into a super computer then why not. The last thing I reckon Sony should do is brick a console since that doesn’t solve anything other than the fact the person will either buy another one, or buy an Xbox 360 (or a Nintendo Wii).

Now I don’t agree with the people that just download a bunch of games they easily could have purchased because that’s just plain stealing, especially if they don’t buy the game later on. For all other instances that pirates and hackers exist whether it’s for Homebrew software, supplying games that no longer exist in the shops, providing access to games to regions in the world that might not have access to a popular title, this all helps the gaming community grow and experiment with new things.

All in all it seems like a battle Sony will inevitably lose and cost loads of money if they continue with their struggle. To be honest though, when I first saw that PS3’s could install an OS on to the console, I had a feeling that function would backfire on them and they definitely shouldn’t have tried disabling it. Ah well.

Posted by Tim.