Here’s a quick look at the crazy cooking title, America’s Test Kitchen: Let’s Get Cooking. It’s essentially a very thorough cookbook with 300 recipes and a lot of very odd features – including voice control – so you can scroll through recipes almost effortlessly. It’s beguilingly strange to “play” a cookbook on the DSi XL .
Follow this link:
Quick Look: America’s Test Kitchen for Nintendo DS
We’ll have a full review of Alienware’s pint-sized gaming machine, but in case you guys haven’t seen enough pictures of it (or there just wasn’t enough bokeh in those other sites’ shots), I’ve put together a nice little gallery for you. I’m happy to take more pictures too if you want close-ups of this or that. I literally just took it out of the package a few minutes ago, and I have to say my first impressions are very positive. They clearly knew what they wanted to do this this thing. The build feels very solid, the screen is bright, the lighting isn’t as over-the-top as I’ve seen on other Alienware models, and a quick Geekbench run gives it an 1889, which is significantly faster than some other slim-and-lights I’ve tested recently. Please go ahead and comment if there’s anything you’re wondering about in particular, and I’ll try to answer those questions in the full review. In the meantime, enjoy these artistic shots of this very good-looking machine. I stacked it on a 15″ MacBook Pro there for size comparison — it’s very compact.
See the original post:
Alienware M11x gallery and first impressions
There’s no shortage of creepy nerd-related stuff out there. I mean, while Japan’s notorious rape simulators are pretty much the pinnacle of gaming-related perversion, there’s still a lot of weird stuff out there. Remember this sleazy contest ? Now, some enterprising person looked at the internet a little while ago and said to himself (surely him self), “Well now. We have gaming girls like the Frag Dolls, and we have desperate gamers with disposable incomes. And we have cam girls. How can I make these pieces fit together?” Simple. Make a site where desperate gamers pay to watch/play with gamer cam girls! It fits the timeless formula: 1. Put cute girls on internet-connected cameras 2. Profit I’m not convinced this will be anything less than a complete boondoggle, of course. I mean, how can… where will they… how do they expect… oh, forget it. As Oscar-winner Christopher Waltz says in Inglourious Basterds , “What tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity.” Or maybe it’s just a way for some girls to put away a few bucks. GameCrush should be launching any second now, so go try it out. Only for the 360, at the moment – pity! [via Crave ]
View original post here:
GameCrush lets you pay to teleconference with cute girls while they game (seriously (truly))
The announcement from Nintendo this morning came like a bolt out of the blue. We all have been expecting some new hardware from Nintendo, seeing as the Wii and DS platforms are getting pretty long in the tooth (despite refreshes for the DS), but a 3D handheld? This is madness! No – this is Iwata ! Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto are two men who know what they’re doing when it comes to making games. While a few of their ideas ( Vitality Sensor , Wii Music) may seem a bit bizarre to us, there’s no question that everything they do is in the name of making fun games . And you know that they wouldn’t be doing the 3D thing unless they felt they could make it fun. There are a number of questions out there. How will the 3D be effected? Will it be faux-3D, as Kotaku wonders? Will it be lenticular lens technology, used for (eye-breaking) glasses-less 3D TVs? After all, the Wii is something less than the perfect 1:1 movement detection they wanted us to think it was. Even the newest motion control technologies are barely approaching that level. Will Nintendo just give us a “good enough” version of 3D? We’ll find out for sure in June, and I’m guessing it’s not going to actually blow everyone’s minds. I mean, you can play tons of games in 3D right now with the right hardware, and it seems likely that the traditional control scheme (analog stick and buttons) is going to make for rather traditional games. You can’t snatch coins out of the air with your hand, or have Mario mimic your limbs’ positions exactly. But remember when the DS came out, and everyone said the second screen was just going to be an anchor around the neck of developers? All they wanted was more power, like the PSP, people said. A second screen, who can even think of a use for it? Well, a hundred million units later , I think we ought to have a little faith in both Nintendo and the developers. Off the top of my head, I can think about a few uses for 3D in a single-player, small-screen device, but I’m guessing that there are developers out there covering whiteboard after whiteboard with sweet handheld 3D concepts. Don’t forget, you’ve got the cameras on there, too. Nintendo is very picky about its hardware, too. The reason, I feel, why they are behind in terms of graphics, is like the reason of the Luddites: it’s not that they don’t like or want technology, but they want to weigh its potential fully before adopting it. So it is with Nintendo, who will I’m sure eventually make possible the photorealistic graphics of the 360 and PS3, but in the meantime seems to be doing just fine with the, let’s be honest, rather meager capabilities of the Wii and DSi. Likewise with the motion control system: they were pitched with the progenitor for Project Natal, and deemed it not ready for prime time, which three years ago it certainly was not (and which remains to be seen). They may have improved the Wiimote with the MotionPlus add-on, but the motion control fidelity on the Wii has been good enough to sell like hotcakes, and I’m guessing that’s about the level they’re aiming for with the 3DS. So whatever technology it uses (and we all know it will be mocked by fanboys no matter what), we know it is at least approved by a couple guys who probably know pretty well what’s good and what isn’t. They led the charge on motion control, and now they’re starting up the “only in 3D” variety of development. And you better believe there’s going to throw a bitching Mario game into the deal. Get excited.
Go here to read the rest:
Is the Nintendo 3DS going to work? Are you kidding, of course it is!
Japanese video gaming powerhouse Square Enix has released a handful of hit titles for the iPhone already (including Final Fantasy I and II ), but the next one, an RPG named Chaos Rings, is poised to blow them all out of the water. Officially announced [JP] today, the game’s trailer shows absolutely amazing graphics. There will be five scenarios in the game, a turn-based battle system, boss fights, and “five 2-person teams that enter into a battle tournament to the death” (the game’s main storyline revolves around said tournament). Square Enix says Chaos Rings will be an original iPhone title with optimized touch controls. And it seems to have the best graphics seen on the iPhone so far. The company released the trailer for Chaos Rings just a few hours ago. It’s in Japanese, but that doesn’t matter too much in this case. Expect the title to hit the App Store “soon”, at the very least within this year (judging from the trailer, the game could be pretty much finished). Here it is: Via andriasang
See the original post:
Chaos Rings: Square Enix releases fantastic trailer for iPhone-exclusive RPG
The latest entry in the games-as-art argument, Heavy Rain is the spiritual secret to the controversial Indigo Prophecy , one of the rare “interactive storytelling” type games that has made a dent on the market since Phantasmagoria. Personally, I think I would enjoy the game, but since I don’t have a PS3, that’s not going to happen any time soon. Yahtzee is of two minds about it , understandably, calling it various names but admitting it gets much better later. Anyone check it out yet?
Follow this link:
Yahtzee takes on Heavy Rain
When Nintendo first unveiled Metroid Prime , fans were skeptical (if not downright apeshit). For a 2D adventure game based on exploration, how could it possibly work in first person? Long story short, Metroid Prime was pretty much universally loved upon release, and now that the Metroid Prime trilogy has gone on to become something of a classic series, all is forgiven. And when Nintendo announced that it had handed off development of the latest Metroid game, Metroid: Other M to Team Ninja, many fans were, once again, walking around with clenched fists. But it was working so well in first person! And early videos showed the game looking much more action oriented. And Samus actually talks in the game. Why would Nintendo let this happen! Thankfully, things have calmed down since Nintendo has shown off more of the game, and the Other M’s 2D to 3D gameplay, along with a weird-yet-interesting NES/pointer control scheme — sans Nunchuk — seems to be whetting appetites something fierce. (Mine, anyway.) In a talk with IGN , Metroid producer Yoshio Sakamoto talked more about the NES style control and lack of Nunchuk integration, saying that “…with the team I’ve been working with, we’ve been making the Metroid series in 2D up to this point. Even though we’ve been looking for a way to control Samus in 3D, we wanted to achieve the feeling that you had when Samus was in 2D. We decided that the traditional D-pad for movement plus jumping and shooting on buttons was the most appropriate control scheme for this direction. The second reason, and let me preface this by saying I don’t think bad games use the nunchuk because there are a lot of great games that do, there’s a certain image created with the nunchuk, it’s a bit of a barrier in accessibility because it’s a “different” control. The nunchuk I think is more appropriate for core audiences. At the same time, I feel that showing people a 3D game where you can control it using the remote really does stir the imagination, they’ll think “How’s it possible to control the character using the sideways remote in 3D?” I also think it’s attractive to those who grew up playing games using this kind of control.” In some ways, this does seem like the logical evolution of the series: blending its 2D roots with some of the innovations of the Prime saga. Hopefully, they can pull it off. But I have one request: Please, Metroid Other M, tell me mid-game if I haven’t done or explored enough to get a good ending. I can’t invest another 20 hours in a Metroid game just to see the back of Samus for 0.37 seconds and then watch the credits roll.
See the rest here:
Metroid Other M: No Nunchuk, No Cry
The whole time I was watching this Mega Man 10 fauxmercial, I was thinking “something about this is wrong.” And yes, it’s all wrong, of course, but specifically… it’s 16:9 . Man, there ain’t no NES commercials in 16:9! [via Reddit ]
Go here to read the rest:
Retro Mega Man 10 commercial – complete with V-Hold issues
Fun fact: If you took one of every available Wii accessory and laid them all end-to-end, they’d stretch around the world 17 times! Add this Balance Board pushup bar to the line. For realsies, though, if you’ve been using Wii Fit you’ll agree that doing pushups is a bit on the awkward side. I find the Balance Board to be a little too narrow for my hulking frame and that, coupled with my shockingly feeble upper body strength, means that I’d probably order this attachment to make doing pushups easier and then be like, “This hurts more now!” The science behind the whole thing is that it’ll allow you “to perform deeper pushups.” You can also re-jigger the angle of the handles if you really want to impress the cartoon Wii Fit lady instructor. The Wii Push Up Bar is up for pre-order on Amazon for $25 . [ CTA Digital via Gizmodo ]
Follow this link:
Pushup bar for Wii Fit Balance Board
Last month, we reported that according to some rumors in the industry, Sony is seriously considering relaunching their portable gaming device, the PSP Go, with a price cut and marketing campaign. And today, Tokyo-based research firm Media Create released [JP] the latest hardware sales numbers for Japan, one of the biggest video game markets in the world. And these numbers indicate that sales-wise, the PSP Go is poised to go down as the biggest failure in recent video gaming history: According to Media Create, a mere 1,275 units were sold all over Japan between March 1 and 7. By way of comparison: The Nintendo DS Lite (not the DSi or the XL) found 4,316 buyers in the same time frame. The regular PSP (the best portable gaming device ever in my opinion), on the other hand, was the No. 1 console, selling 64,808 units in that week. Sony was able to sell just 17,618 PSP GO [GER] in the ten weeks between December 28, 2009 and March 7, 2010 - an almost unbelievably low number. Good for Sony that in the same time frame, 667,961 of the regular PSPs were sold, making that device the best-selling game system in Japan in 2010 (if you ignore the three-way split of the DS systems). In Japan, the PSP Go currently goes for 26,800 Yen , a more than steep price when compared to the 16,800 to 19,800 Yen buyers have to pay for a PSP-300o or the 29,980 Yen a PS3 costs (10,000 Yen=$110). It looks like the rumored price cuts, marketing campaigns and hardware changes don’t come out of nowhere.
More:
17,618: That’s how many PSP Go Sony sold in Japan in 2010
Design by Joe Fischler for
Blog WebMastered by All in One Webmaster.
Renewable News