Fidgit

Nintendo DSi diagnosed with impending swelling

Tom Chick — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:44:51 -0500

]]>Because Nintendo knows how much people love re-buying their favorite hardware with moderate improvements, the DSi is being re-released on March 28th as the DSi XL. As you can tell by the last two letters, it's bigger. According to the rules of fancy math, the two screens are now 93% bigger.
Nintendo DSi XL will be available at a suggested retail price of $189.99, and that includes three titles that have been pre-installed on the system. These include the brain-training games Brain Age™ Express: Math and Brain Age™ Express: Arts & Letters, as well as Photo Clock, which lets users customize the pictures on the background of their clock. Nintendo DSi XL launches in both Burgundy and Bronze, with a glossy top and a matte-finish bottom for a better grip.
The ability to customize the picture on the background of a clock is considered its own "title"? I'd like to see the math that determined that.

The horror! See Bioshock's failed monsters.

Tom Chick — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:32:42 -0500

]]>Irrational Games has posted concept art of creatures proposed for Bioshock that didn't make the cut, such as Jelly Man and Yam Hand. That guy up there is Monster Bug. That's partly how you can tell they never made it past the concept art stage: they're saddled with the sorts of absurd but descriptive names that artists come up with because they know someone else is going to give it a place and a name in the game universe.

Here's the skinny on Monster Bug:

This is one of the more gruesome pieces of concept work to emerge during work on BioShock - a huge insect slowly growing from within a human being and taking over the physical form. And as sickening as this image is, its true power comes from what's implied: what was it like for the original person transitioning to this state of organic fusion? And what mash-up of man and bug is hidden under that cloth?

See more here.

And if you want an in-depth look at various directions Bioshock 2 could have gone, get your own yam hands on the coffee table book that came in the collector's edition. It's full of fantastic artwork and explanations of material that didn't make the cut in the sequel, including monsters, weapons, and places.

Writing is on the wall in the Splinter Cell: Conviction demo

Tom Chick — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:15:23 -0500

]]>The Xbox 360 gets a demo of Splinter Cell: Conviction today. Based on the screenshots, it looks like you're not going to be at a loss for what you're supposed to do.

The press release elaborates a bit on what you get:

The single-player demo will feature the opening segment of the Michigan Avenue Reservoir level and serve as an introduction to the game's core gameplay mechanics for Splinter Cell fans. Gamers will have the opportunity to find out for themselves why brand-new innovative features such as Mark and Execute and Last Known Position have made Conviction one of the most anticipated games of the year.

The demo is not available for the Playstation 3. Which makes sense when you consider the game won't be out for the Playstation 3.

Temperatures mild, traffic light, giant robots heavily armed

Tom Chick — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:59:42 -0500

]]>I'm still skeptical about Front Mission Evolved, which seems like an attempt to take the distinctly Japanese series of giant robot strategy games and make them more palatable to us American shooterists. It doesn't help that I had to play the developer's last game, that awful GI Joe tie-in. I like to think Double Helix was saving all the good stuff for Front Mission Evolved.

However, I quite like that screenshot up there, which was just released today. Giant robots are all good and well when they're shooting giant arm-guns and punching each other with giant metal fists or maybe even vibro-swords or whatever. But part of what makes the concept interesting is the juxtaposition of giant robots with mundane stuff.

That comes across in that screenshot of two giant robots -- I believe they're called wangers or something in the Front Mission series -- shooting each other in mild temperatures on a street where the speed limit is so low. I hope it's an indication of the direction the game is headed. Wanger battles in familiar settings. Let's get those guys out into the suburbs, shopping malls, and maybe even an amusement park. In short, anyplace zombies have been is prime real estate for giant robot battles.

By the way, Front Mission Evolved takes place 150 years in the future. It's nice to see the United States still hasn't succumbed to the metric system.

Patchwork Heroes is so crazy it just might work

Tom Chick — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:31:26 -0500

It's easy to make jokes about the PSP collecting dust, but Sony's littlest system is still chock full of unique games that you can't get anywhere else. Patchwork Heroes, which comes out tomorrow, looks like one such game. From developer Yuki Ikeda's entry on the Playstation blog:

The idea for Patchwork Heroes came from wanting to make an action game that was sort of like cutting up paper with scissors, and I ended up pairing that with something very dynamic: giant aircraft and battleships! The basic premise of the game is to use a big saw to cut giant flying battleships into pieces before they come and destroy your town. As you cut chunks off the flying gunships, there's lots of other action in fighting and dodging enemies, and also saving friends and collecting items.

Little Big Planet meets Dig Dug meets physics meets crazy Japanese artwork? Throw in whatever weird J-pop pomp-pomp-pomp song is playing in the trailer and I'm sold.

10 years later Perfect Dark returns, this time for real

Tom Chick — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:59:35 -0500

]]>For ten bucks, you can get into the wayback machine and pretend Perfect Dark Zero never happened. Xbox Live Marketplace just got an updated version of the original Perfect Dark, a Nintendo 64 shooter that followed up Golden Eye as proof that, hey, shooters really do work on console systems! And this was a year before that Halo thing came out.

From the Marketplace page:

Experience every twist of the story, every stray bullet, every gadget and upgrade, every newly polished texture - and top it all off with full access to multiplayer modes now playable across the globe through Xbox LIVE.

It may not look like much based on that screenshot up there, but keep in mind this is from the creative team that would go on to form Free Radical and create the Timesplitters games. You could see in Perfect Dark some of the same variety, replayability, and inspired multiplayer support that made Timesplitters so special.

A stylish final resting place for the Xbox 360

Tom Chick — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:02:44 -0500

]]>Check out that case for your Xbox 360, designed by artist Aleksei Vanamois. Morbid but entirely appropriate, complete with the red ring of death on the lid. You can see more pictures at Good Gear Guide.

(Thanks Slashdot !)

Don't miss this sage advice from Final Fantasy XIV

Tom Chick — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:56:56 -0500

]]>Just in time to make sure I stay confused about the whole Final Fantasy XIII/XIV thing, Square/Enix has released some, um, well...I'm not sure what they are, but they relate to the later Final Fantasy that will be an MMO. I think maybe they're motivational posters or maybe pages from the game's manual. They seem like the sort of thing you'd hang in a junior high classroom or a communist re-education camp, but they relate to MMO principles instead of the human reproductive system or the working class.

My favorite one reads, "Scan the lands, work the mines, know the market, trust the Twelve." It sounds like good advice as you're reading along. "Scan the lands" -- uh-huh -- "work the mines" -- sure -- "know the market" -- absolutely -- "trust the Twelve" -- wait, what? The who? Who are they? Apostles? Days of Christmas? Eggs? Trust them to do what? Or is this some sort of economics thing? Does Timothy Geithner know about this? Is it going to be on the final?

God of War III is nothing if not consistent

Tom Chick — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:27:21 -0500

]]>God of War III is really no better than the previous Gods of War, which was a fine thing to be before games like Bayonetta, God Hand, and Darksiders came along. Now it just feels so 2005 to be trundling along your pre-determined path, fighting in successive arenas against the same uninteresting but elaborately animated enemies, and occasionally having to push a crate.

Read the review after the jump.

Majesty 2 adds a little chaos and uncertainty to free will

Tom Chick — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:52:48 -0500

]]>Majesty 2 is a kingdom simulator based on free will. Your little dudes act according to their own nature, not according to you clicking on them. It's a fascinating game and a great follow-up to the original Majesty . But unlike the original, there are no random maps in Majesty 2. You can only play the same canned scenarios over and over.

That changes a little bit today. From the notes for latest patch:

- Added "randomize" feature in all missions of the game, including multiplayer. Switching on randomize mode shuffles locations of non-quest monster dens, and places for construction of temples and trading posts. Warning! This can dramatically affect the difficulty of the mission.
- Random filling of chests. Now heroes can find various amounts of gold, as well as weapons, armour, elixirs, and artifacts.

The patch also adds a map editor and a few interface improvements. Oh, and then there's this:- Added the possibility of purchasing additional game content. Part of additional content is available for free.
Get the v1.3 update here.

Play the new sniper cop class in Bad Company 2

Tom Chick — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:31:36 -0500

]]>There technically aren't any snipers in Bad Company 2. There are just players with sniper rifles who are considered recon class. "Recon" is a verb that, surprisingly, doesn't mean "park somewhere off the beaten path and rack up as many kills as you can with no regard for actually trying to win the round or even doing anything to help the other players in your squad".

Yet Bad Company 2 is full of people who don't know that. So I've started playing a new class: the sniper cop.

After the jump, read about how you, too, can be a sniper cop.

Yakuza 3: great story, shame about the game

Tom Chick — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:51:16 -0500

]]>It's just another day in Okinawa. I beat up some street punks then offered credit advice to a suicidal man. Out of gratitude, he gave me a health potion. Now I'm in the middle of a heated chase to catch a puppy, because that's the kind of yakuza I am.

Read the Yakuza 3 review after the jump.

Shhh, don't tell...Just Cause 2 demo hacked

Tom Chick — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:13:00 -0500

]]>Only eight more days until the long national nightmare of being unable to play the full version of Just Cause 2 is over. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I can stomach being boxed into the demo area, not to mention the time limit kicking in just as things get interesting. And I'm really sick of that woman telling me that she hears I'm the best.

If you're playing the PC version of the demo, here's a file from someone named "gibbed" that will free you from some of the demo's limitations and iterations. Unzip the file into your game directory and enjoy these boons:

- Demo time limit 'removed'.
- Demo map limit removed.
- Introduction cutscenes removed.
- All vehicles in the demo available through black market for free.
- All weapons in the demo available through black market for free.
- Upgrades for vehicles and weapons are free.
- Spiffy black market images for all of the vehicles since the demo didn't have
them.

(Thanks Sean!)

Some new Modern Warfare 2 maps aren't new

Tom Chick — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:19:15 -0500

]]>The XBox Live Marketplace page spills the beans about the first round of DLC for Modern Warfare 2. It'll be called The Stimulus Package because Infinity Ward used up all their supposedly sly references to marijuana when they were thinking up those unlockable player badge things like "blunt trauma" and "joint ops". The DLC will be available first on the Xbox 360 for an unspecified period of exclusivity later this year and it'll cost $15 because Activision can charge whatever the heck they want for a game this successful.

Here's what you'll get:

The Stimulus Package delivers 5 additional action-packed multiplayer maps featuring a variety of locations: "Bailout," a multi-level apartment complex; "Storm," an open industrial park littered with heavy machinery; "Salvage," a snowy junkyard fortified by stacked debris and crushed cars. Two legendary fan-favorites from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare return, including "Crash," a war-torn urban environment; and "Overgrown," which features a massive dry creek bed.

iPhone RPG The Quest throws down a gauntlet

Tom Chick — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:39:40 -0500

]]>If you play iPhone games, you're probably racking up a score on Open Feint, which tracks achievements in various games. I've got 1,284 Open Feint points, which I'm pretty sure is impressive. But now there's another place to track achievements called Crystal, which is a terrible name for an achievement system, because the next logical word is either "light" or "meth".

I only know about Crystal, on which I have zero points, because it was added to The Quest, a really cool and very challenging open-world RPG. The latest patch makes The Quest "Crystal enabled".

There is now a single achievement for finishing the main quest. There's also a leaderboard for finishing the main quest with the least amount of experience points. Which is a pretty cool challenge to throw down. You have to start a new character, and you go on a different scoreboard if you take advantage of any of the expansions. It's a long-term challenge, but it's quite a challenge. If you're interested in getting your name up there, now's the chance. There are currently only four people who've posted scores. If you hurry up, you'll be in the top five! And gratz to "freckles" for finishing The Quest with only 62,145xp.