Check out your game library right now. If you’re like me, then there’s definitely some games in there that you desperately want to beat (much more actually get some decent playtime in) but just haven’t found the time to. And with the steady flow of big-name titles, that neglected pile of unfinished (or even untouched) games might be piling up even as we speak. What if there was some way for you to finish the game, without having to skip even a moment of its content, but in a fraction or less of the time that it would take to actually sit down and fight your way through its challenges and obstacles?

It seems that Nintendo has been working on a system that does exactly that. Through a patent that was filed by Shigeru Miyamoto on June 30, 2008, we find out just how Nintendo can once more change the way people play games – or rather, not play them, but enjoy them all the same.

So what is it?

Basically, it’s a system that makes the game play itself, turning it into one full-length cutscene that you can jump into at any time you wish. Like for example, you’re in a part of the game where you have to explore this dungeon that promises to have a lot of backtracking, random enemy encounters and traps to contend with. You want to skip it, but what if there’s something in there that you want to see (like a story element or even the kinds of monsters you might be facing)? You switch the system on, the game plays the dungeon for you without skipping anything, you can watch it as it goes on, and you can immediately hop into the action when you see the game’s arrived at that critical junction. Of course, you won’t be able to save when the game is being played by the system. This feature is called ‘Digest’, and will be performed by the game automatically loading save states downloaded through the network. Another feature of this new system is the ’scene menu’, which lets players load to a specific part of the game without having to watch the game play itself. Kinda like that DVD menu style of Alone in the Dark.

Interesting? Definitely. Casual-pandering? Maybe. But it sure beats having a buddy come over and play a frustrating part of the game yourself (if you’re that not inclined to play that part of the game).

Ok so I was talking to a buddy of mine and he started talking about how easy and unimpressive twilight princess was. Ok, that’s the opinion of most long-term Zelda fans. Then I said “You know we need more games like Ocarina of Time” (and I might have mentioned Majora’s Mask but most people dislike that game, huh). So of course he then proceeded to ask the question that is the core of this article

“Wait, what’s so great about Ocarina of Time?”

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I’ve seen lots of discussion on which is better, the Sony Playstation Portable or the Nintendo DualScreen, so I thought I’d help break it down a bit for people that are confused about which to buy. Let me first start of by saying, they are both amazing systems, and they are both worth owning for different reasons, I’m not here to say “lol ds sucks” or “haha psp eats horseshit”. You could say I’m exploring the best of both worlds.

Let’s get down to content then shall we? Let’s start with what each can do briefly
(Not Included = Purchased Function)

So when someone looks at this they think “gee they seem similar”, well they are and they aren’t. The Nintendo DS is similar to the Wii in terms of games; there are good games there, most of which by Nintendo, but you have a library of kiddy shit. The Nintendo DS does feature some amazing titles such as Professor Layton, Phoenix Wright, Elite Beat Agents, etc, but much like the Wii you’ll find that the games are cartoon-y and sometimes childish, not that it’s a bad thing.

The Sony PSP is a pirate ship. I kid you not, the PSP modding community has grown so widely and done so much that the PSP is now a pirate’s best friend, next to a PC of course. The fact is, while the PSP may have a smaller library of good games, and features some games that are PS2 ports; you can easily obtain games from other consoles to play.

The bottom line is: the PSP is a handheld made more for functionality; the Nintendo DS is a handheld made more for games. So if you’re looking for more a less expensive media center in your pocket, go for a PSP, if you’re looking more for portable gaming, go for a DS.

As a bonus, here’s a list of recommended games for each handheld.

DS Recommended Games

PSP Recommended Games

The guys at Nintendo sure are a mystery. On one hand you have them consistently stating they aren’t trying to be copycats, and pioneer where the video game industry will turn. On the other hand, you have them doing exactly the opposite, and moving into territory well-tread by the other two consoles. Rather than improving certain features that still seem rashly implimented.(Friendcodes. FRIENDCODES NINTENDO!?)

Despite my short rant, Nintendo still seem to want to release this in Japan around Q1 2009 with other territories coming ‘later‘* as usual. And don’t expect them to be in 1080p glorious high-definition either, because that’s a pipedream and you and I both know that. Standard 480p and don’t forget that little 512mb memory limit the Wii has going on at the minute. Or perhaps we should just put them all on SD cards like they previously suggested we do with VC titles.

Source: Yahoo Tech

*later means 2012

For the launch of Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, I took a train down to the Nintendo World Store in Rockefeller Center for their launch festivities. I arrived a tiny bit late, as there were about a clean 100 people in front of me (in the line that was outside of the building, anyway). Most of us bided the time by playing DS games with eachother (Except for me. I’m not nearly social enough.)

The first guy on line (A man who is named “Jack Smith” according to 1up, who waited up all night, that fucker) came out of the store and walked up the line, showing off the two games he got, along with the signed copy of Diamond. You see, if you were one of the first people to pre-order and buy both of the Pokemon games, you got your choice of:

A) Mets tickets.
B) Dinner at the top of the Empire State Building.
C) A signed copy of one of the games.

While he took the stupid prize, one guy opted for the Mets tickets. The only problem was, he didn’t like Baseball. So what did this glorious fucker do? He walked straight up the line, asking people if they were Baseball fans. He gave the tickets to the first kid to say yes. You have to hand it to Pokemon fans. They may be creepy, but they’re pretty good people, deep down under the pathetic.
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Crowned as one of the hardest games for the original Nintendo, Ninja Gaiden brings back a lot of fond memories for me. Growing up in a house where video games and computers were the norm, my Dad introduced me to most of the games on the NES. He usually picked them up from yard sales around the area during the early 90’s. Ninja Gaiden was one of them. Being intrigued by ninjas at a young age, with Ninja

Turtles and the like, I was determined to beat this game. At the time, I certainly realized how frustrating it was learning all the patterns, getting skilled with using the various weapons you could throw. I’m pretty sure I flung out my first string of curse words at this game.

My mother would yell at me for cursing, but I didn’t care, it became commonplace for me to express my frustration that way. In the beginning of trying to conquer this impossible game, I got so excited when I reached the end of the second stage. Watching the anime-style cutscene go by rewarded me for my arduous efforts. I soon reached the third stage, fourth, each time progressing with hidden skills. I learned how to climb back up a wall when I accidentally missed a jump, by flicking the D-Pad quickly left and right. I learned how to throw a boomerang star and time each of the jumps in the stage so that it would swirl around me, creating a maelstrom of destruction as I quickly ran through each level. I found out that with the boss with the spinning sickle, I could get hit and bounce up higher on the wall so that he freaks out, spins the other way, and I could jump over him and take him out easier. (continue reading…)

Most of us know about the attempted invasion thirty years ago, and how the Core Cannon – humanity’s greatest hope back then – successfully fended off the threat of UFOs and pixellated aliens. Victory against the Space Invaders means peace for humanity right? Wrong.

Three decades have passed, and humans being humans, started to fight amongst themselves over the Core Cannon, the weapon that was supposed to bring peace to the world. Seeing that the Earthlings are too busy bombing each other to notice any alien threat, the embittered Space Invaders have started plotting their revenge. Now with better planning and attack formations, Taito’s Space Invaders are back…and this time no bunker will save anything who gets in their way. (continue reading…)

Hardcore and casual games. Hardcore and casual gamers. I’ve spent to much time on the Internet to be surprised when I hear it, but almost once in every argument, it get’s dropped.

“It’s a CASUAL game”

A casual game. A game, that is casual in it’s design? In it’s use? In it’s plot or art? What does that mean? What do you THINK you’re saying?

Video games are NOT casual. Nor are they Hardcore. Video games are video games. There is no such thing as a hardcore game and a casual game. There are obscure games, there are popular games, there are simple games, there are complex games, there are pretty games and there are ugly games. But there is no hardcore game, and not a single casual game. They don’t exist. A game cannot be hardcore or casual. A video game can have a target audience, an art style, a plot, no plot, it can have complex controls, it could use a motion sensor, it might even require you to type words to progress, as opposed to ever controlling anything, but none of these choices will ever make it casual or hardcore.

Katamari Damacy is obscure. It’s also colourful, and it’s simple. It’s kooky and straightforward in design. It’s intention is not to appeal any one demographic. It’s intention is to take a risk in game design. Would Katamari Damacy be a hardcore game or a casual game? Both, and neither. It qualifies for either. So how can we even begin to categorize it with a straight face, knowing full well that it would hypocritical and idiotic to do so?

The same goes for all video games. Another example? Grand Theft Auto. Difficult, traditional, risk taking, and immensely popular. How could this seemingly hardcore game still be hardcore if non-gamers play it casually everyday? GTAIV received endless criticism due to it’s popularity, calling it casual and mainstream when in fact it was ONLY mainstream. I am an avid gamer. I own a slew of consoles, I play them all. I own 2 copies of GTAIV, and will be getting the PC version in December. Now, I do not play it that often. I never play it for more then an hour. I play it, casually, you could say. BUT, it is not a casual game and I am not a casual gamer. It is also not a hardcore game. It is an action adventure open world sandbox game. I am a hardcore gamer, or as I like to say, “gaming enthusiast”. My brother is a casual gamer, he doesn’t spend long on a game, except for GTAIV. He plays the game hardcore, because he payed for it and read into it, and invested himself into it.

Catz and Dogz and Horsez are not casual, they are not hardcore, they are shovelware. Katamari is a puzzle game. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a party game and Halo is a first person shooter. I own and play all these (with the exception of the shovelware). Famously, on the internet at least, Halo is casual, Katamari is hardcore and casual and Smash Bros. is the epitome of casual. But I’ve played SSBB for at least 100 hours now. How could that be casual playing?

It can’t be, and it’s not. I am a hardcore gamer. People who own Wii’s and play for 40 minutes at most in a day are casual gamers. My friend is a casual gamer, he owns an Xbox 360. My other friend is a hardcore gamer, he only owns a Wii. My brother is a casual gamer, he owns a $1200 gaming PC. How a game could be casual boggles me. Games are not designed like that. Games cannot be casual. It is the GAMER that is casual or hardcore. The gamer plays it their way, invests in it their way, spends as much time in it as they like. There has never been a casual or hardcore game. Only a casual and hardcore gamer. It’s really that simple.

You see, butt-hurt console war crap come mostly from internal regret. From wasting a paycheck and waiting in the rain for a console, or underestimating your mother’s “you can only have one” rule, regret can be, and probably IS the biggest driving force behind console fanboys.

The Wii had the best launch by far, and is still beating the crap out of the competition, leaving old school Nintendo fanboys and once regretful 1st generation DS owners (who lucked out on the system’s initial lackluster success) laughing all the way to their mother’s basements. The problem is, after Brawl was released, Wii owners noticed not only that there are very few good exclusives, but there doesn’t seem to be many good games on the horizon. Slowly, many are realizing that the Wii may truly be a ‘Gamecube 1.5′.

The PlayStation’s fall from grace is by far the biggest story to come from this generation. The initial failure of the overpriced console left it’s purchases restrained only to Sony loyalists, optimists, graphics whores, and kids that got shafted come Christmas time. Things looked entirely grim, until the turning point at last year’s E3, along with the release of MGS4 and the so-called ‘Blue-Ray victory’ led to pessimists dropping their guards and embracing the console. It’s sudden upturn, in addition to a slew of new exclusives, has not only returned hope to Sony’s eyes, but has led fanboys to strike back at their opposite competition with a violent vengeance.

Which leaves the 360. With good sales and the highest number of quality exclusives, the 360 owners should be the happiest fanboys of the bunch. But lately, with the rise of the PS3’s sales and the Wii’s dominance, the possibility of the 360, once the shining star of the generation, ending up the least successful, has fanboys absolutely livid. Even worse, the constant comments from casual and non-fanboy PS3 owners raving about their new console for no reason other than the fact that they just like to play the games has led to hilariously horrible fanboy wars being ‘fought’ on every corner of the internet.

This combination of groupthink and regret felt on every side has led to the most blatant and annoying generation of video game fanboyism ever seen. Even worse, more and more aging children are being brought into this gloriously unhealthy fandom with this powerful fanboy mindset, which may mean that all future generations of video games inspire the same undeserved rage this one has.

P.S.: Venom is from Spider-Man.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is the third game in the Zelda series and the only game in the series to be released for the Super Nintendo system. It also saw two re-releases recently: The first of which was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Four Swords, released in 2003 the game was almost a direct port save for some minor changes and the addition of a multiplayer mode that contained randomly generated dungeons. The second was for the Wii Virtual Console with a January 22nd 2007 release, this was however identical to the SNES version. A Link to the Past also has a direct sequel which was only released in Japan, The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets, however because this game was only playable through BS-X (A peripheral used to download SNES games over satellite only released in Japan) it is no longer avaliable and was only playable for a month.

The story revolves around a character known as Agahnim, a dark wizard who takes the throne of Hyrule by force whom intends on freeing Ganon from his prison in another realm. The only way to defeat him is by collecting three magic pendants obtained by beating the first three boss’s in the first three dungeons. Once he is defeated, you are subsequently sent to the dark realm where you must free the seven descendants of the Seven Sages in order to face Agahnim again in Ganon’s Tower. After defeating him for a second and final time Ganon rises up from Agahnim’s body, turns into a bat, and flies away. He can then be found in the Pyramid of Power, where the games final battle takes place.

Some would have found this difficult in the good old days…

A Link to the Past was the second game in the series to use the overhead style of play after Zelda II’s venture into the realm of side scrolling, the decision to do this came about from the poor reception Zelda II got for this very reason. The game has a very basic combat system in that one button is used to slash your sword and one button can be used for an item; these vary from cross bows and and boomerangs to bombs and wands. You can also hold down your sword button for a charge attack which swings your sword 360 degrees. Item collecting is also an important part of the game in that, without certain objects such as flippers for swimming or the Master Sword you can’t finish the game. On top of Link’s regular gear you can also find stronger versions of most items in the later parts of the game. Link to the past uses the heart health system which has been a main stay of the series, through out the game you are also rewarded (Or will find) pieces of heart which, when four are placed together, adds to your health bar.

Puzzles within dungeons also return from the first Zelda game. They can range from simple things such as pushing a certain brick in a room to unlock a door after defeating one or two enemies; to the more annoying like having two lasers being fired at you every few seconds while you lift up 10 or so pots to find a button. They do add some spice to the game though as I will admit dungeons would get rather boring if it was just hack and slash the whole way through. On top of that secret rooms also play a big part through out the game as they can be a good source of health or arrows/bombs, alot of the time there’s also alot of rupees to be found. These are usually accessed via the use of a bomb to a cracked wall.

It looked good back then, and still does today!

It’s hard to judge a game on graphics this old, with a title like this it’s more about game play then what the game looks like. However in this case the game does look rather presentable and is probably the best example of a top-down perspective RPG game of this style for it’s era. Beyond the fact that it uses cartoon’ish style graphics and well done 2D sprites, there’s not a hell of alot you can say about it besides the fact that it’s a beautiful, albeit, old game.

While this might be a bold claim i’ve said it quite a few times in the past. Alot of people ask or get asked the question, “Which Zelda game do you think is the best?”. Majority of the time the answer is Ocarina of Time, however i’m not so inclined to agree. Going off game play alone and looking past how old the game is, the top-down style and the fairly average graphics; I find Link to the Past to be the best game in the series bar none and easily one of the greatest games of our time.