The WiiWare Commercial

Game Trailers has put up a Japanese commercial which gives you a good idea of what WiiWare will be like. Even though I can’t understand Japanese, it’s clear that the Ping Pong, Tetris, Solitaire, Dr. Mario and a Pokemon Pikachu game will be enjoyable casual experiences. Star Soldier R is a nod to old school scifi shooting games, which every downloadable gaming site can’t have enough of. It’s the 12th version of Star Soldier, updated with 3D graphics. (Remember when the ship would shoot from five different directions? Talk about a killer space craft.) After you check out the commercial on Game Trailers, check out Star Solider R in action in the homemade YouTube video below.

Still, I’d like to see something really new that’s never been done before. These initial games don’t have it. But I’m patient. I can wait.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/31719.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1pKO2LW6sc

Bright Idea: MTVs Totilo On PS3 Headtracking

Over at the MTV Multiplayer blog, Stephen Totilo checked out Sony's could-be-brilliant, add-on invention for the PlayStation Eye camera. Basically, you move your head and eyes to help you control the game. Now, a lot was made at the Game Developers Conference of a headset one donned to read the gamer’s brainwaves and, hence, help you rock your gaming. As Stephen demonstrates so well in an unedited video, you don’t need no stinking headset. Exactly how and when we’ll see this in action has yet to be determined. Personally, I think it’d be cool if you could shoot a gun by blinking your eyes. One commenter suggests that it may not be so cool if the Eye doesn’t detect depth perception. Which is true. But this is just the beginning of eye and headtracking experimentation. Imagine where we’ll be five years from now!

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/02/27/playstation-3-head-tracking-no-gimmicks-no-glasses-just-a-camera-watch-this/

LittleBigPlanet Sock Toy

So LittleBigPlanet has its own blog. (Hey, who doesn't?) Since one of the Moms of the devboys at Media Molecule loves knitting, she came up with this oh-so-adorable Sackboy character. Says Media Molecule, “Silvia’s actually made Sackboy, for real, in all his knitted and stitched glory! It’s so good we wondered if we’d hired the right member of the family to work here! (Not really, her son is making artwork for the game that will blow you away) but we can certainly see where he gets his talent from.” I … want … this … now!

http://www.mediamolecule.com/blog/2008/02/06/sackboy-fo-real/

Nokia N-Gage Was Good Until…

I'm one of the few people who liked the last couple of games released on the old Nokia N-Gage phone. In fact, I thought Mile High Pinball was one of the greatest games ever made for a mobile phone. In a small room at the Game Developers Conference Nokia exhibit, I spoke to Dr. Mark Ollila, Head of Nokia Games Publishing and Director of Technology & Strategy. Ollila showed off the new N-Gage games platform which just launched in early February. I’m happy to say Mile High Pinball will be released again for the platform. Other than that, here’s what happened.

--First, Ollila showed off a graphically excellent fishing game called Creatures of the Deep in which you get to fish anywhere around the world. You even get factoids about the country in which you cast your rod (in this case, Costa Rica). I liked the idea that Creatures was a real sim: when Ollila pulled in what he thought was a fish, it turned out to be a palm frond. I’ve all too often pulled in debris like that myself.

--What I was more interested in was how Nokia would make games easy to find on the phones. I didn’t get a satisfactory answer. Ollila said if you search around, it’s easily found on the Nokia user interface. He said that the Nokia N-Gage community would help noobs find games. But I was thinking that a gamer and non-gamer should be able to find the right offerings to play on the moment they boot up the phone. I even think that Nokia should send out text messages to users to tell them about new games. Ollila didn’t seem to like this idea. Right now, you do have to click a fair number of times before you get to games. That, to me, is a challenge for Nokia to work on.

--I liked an upcoming game of episodic content called Dirk Dagger, an old school point and click adventure game in which you find items by simply moving your phone as if your phone were your head and eyes using motion controls built into the phone’s camera. Still, since the dev process is still happening, a rep from the company making Dirk couldn’t say when a batch of content would be downloadable after the initial release of the game. My guess is, if the first iteration sells, then they’ll make more content. If it doesn’t, the first is all you get.

--Then, something weird happened. I was ushered into a cramped room by a very snide-ass producer who basically said, So, I’m not going to show you this game unless you’re smart enough to answer all the questions about old school games in this questionnaire on this computer. So I answered some right and some wrong, and the dude is standing there all smug like he’s got the next BioShock or some crap. The answers I did get right revealed a little gremlin sprite, and when I asked more about what the gremlin had to do with the game, the dude said I could take the test over again to find out. Then the dude winks at me. What a jerk this guy was. I never want to see anything about that unnamed game again.

http://www.tech2.com/india/news/mobile-phones/nokia-goes-game-crazy/29301/0

Emotiv's Epoc: Ur Mind Is The Controller

I was invited yesterday to a press conference for a unique device that uses brain waves to control a game. The $299 thing itself looks cool, like a spider grabbing onto your head. In any case, I had other plans, but something in my head also said, This thing probably doesn’t work that well. Kotaku’s Brian Crecente loves the idea (as I do). But when he tried out the device, did it work well? Eh, not so much. Check out Crecente’s piece about the invention at Kotaku. Hopefully, they’ll have it all fixed by the time it ships to the stores.

http://kotaku.com/358237/mind-over-no-matter-hands+on-with-the-psychic-controller

Prof. Layton: Dumb Swag 4 Great Game

Tomorrow’s the day the Prof. Layton and the Curious Village game of logic puzzles hits retail shelves for the Nintendo DS, and you’ll see my two cents by the end of the week. But Nintendo didn’t help its case much by send this huge Nerf hat to promote the game. It looks like something the Mad Hatter would be made to wear as protection if he was  bipolar and started banging his head against the wall.

The mauve and pink top hat that is nine inches tall and 13 inches in circumference was sent in a big Fex Ed box that probably cost $25 to overnight. Me, I’d have been happy with a Professor Layton pen sent by snail mail.

Do any of you Game Break fans want the Prof. Layton top hat? Tell me why it would be useful to you in the comments section.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Layton_and_the_Curious_Village

Skype Rocks On The PSP

I know it seems like Sony PSP day here at Game Break, but it’s with good reason. When a system shows its mettle and rocks the way it should, I’m all over it with praise. Skype, the Web-based broadband phone service bought by eBay some time ago, is so easy to install and use on the PSP, I was shocked – in a good way. The ability to make long distance phone calls around the world is a feature within the latest PSP update (which you get via your WiFi connection). While the update takes too long to download, the result is completely worth it.

While calling another Skype user is free, you’ll probably want to call others, too. So I could call mobile phones and landlines, I was able to add $10 to Skype via my Paypal account super quickly and without a problem. Using Sony’s extremely light headphones/microphone option, I was able to make phone calls in any WiFi hotspot for about two cents a minute anywhere around the world. I do wish the headphones/microphone were wireless because I hate the easily entangled wires: the PSP should have come with Bluetooth built in. Others actually have modded Bluetooth into the PSP (as in the YouTube link below), but I’m not going to go that far: it’s messy.

It’s enough to say that Skype on the PSP is quaking my world right now. I mean, I want to call strangers because I’m so psyched about the technology.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/01/29/skype-on-the-psp-firmware-v390-coming-soon/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-f0t6wrfeE

Off The Wall Mario On The Wall

Today, Kotaku links to a YouTube video of mechanical Mario art that takes the words 'side scroller’ to heart. Basically, the artist made an installation of a 3D motorized Super Mario level, kind of like a moving diorama. So you have a TV screen, inside of which is a Mario doll, moving from left to right or right to left. Your controller doesn’t make Mario jump. Instead, it moves the platform. I don’t know what it all means, but it sure looks cool – even though they had to cut a big, rectangular hole in the wall to do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXdifR7s1vA&eurl=http://kotaku.com/index.php?refId=354103

http://kotaku.com/354021/mario-art-scrolls-jumps-is-utterly-fantastic

Tech Alert: Zeemote Cell Phone Controller

I’ve never enjoyed dealing with the small buttons on a cell phone. They’re fine to make a call, but horrible for playing games. I mean, did you ever mistakenly touch the ‘End’ key in the middle of a level to unceremoniously kill your game?

 

Zeemote must have seen the problems as well. That’s why they created the Zeemote JS1, a Bluetooth wireless controller for playing games on your cell phone. Says the Web site, “Our first product, the JS1 joystick, interacts as naturally with a mobile device as a mouse does with a conventional computer….Its sleek design features a full analog thumb-play joystick, four action buttons and a light, ergonomic design for optimal comfort.” Of course, games have to be made to work with the controller. Not every game published will work. You can see which games do work by checking out the Zeemote site below

 

http://zeemote.com/GDC2008/learn_zeemote.php 

Two Cents: Razer Mako Speakers

Sometimes, you just have to have audiophile-quality speakers when you game. Whether it's just Beethoven’s boost-your-ego “Ode To Joy” in Peggle or the ominous mechanical sounds in Portal, you want to hear them precisely as they were meant to sound. Therefore, I was primed and psyched to test out the Razer Mako 2.1 Advanced Desktop Audio System, two pretty, black oval speakers with a big, black bass-amplifying subwoofer.

You can set the system up in minutes and attach it to you laptop, game console or iPod. But remember that old line from the Nintendo DS ads which proclaimed, Touching Is Good? The same applies to the round, flat Touch Pad which controls the sound within Razer’s groundbreaking design. There are no buttons or knobs here; you move you finger over the edge of the pad in a circular motion to increase or decrease volume. I had some trouble here as touching too hard was a no-no which didn’t do anything to the volume. You almost have to tickle the device to change the sound. It’s a little like learning to shave: you have to apply the proper pressure to make it work. But it’s not a deep learning curve by any means. It just something you have to be aware of.

 

Once I got the system booming, I was taken up into this universe of sound, almost like the way an alien ship might take a human up into its innards via a beam: it’s that good. But then, the subwoofer blasted with such gusto, the power cord came out. Razer said that review units didn’t have the final version of the cord, and they sent the one which is part of the retail package: it has yet to come off the subwoofer to end my sonic pleasure.

You can add everything from an amplifier to a DVD player to a PSP to the system and everything sounds stellar. I do detect a certain bass-heaviness to things, but I just lowered the bass intensity on the Touch Pad to suit my taste. But what really makes the speakers a design innovation are the THX speakers. They not only spew sound in 360 degrees, they’re designed for the desktop. What drives the speakers is right near the wood in your desk, effectively doubling the power and offering your ears an even, alluring audio experience; if the sound were skin it would be some of the smoothest and silkiest you’ve ever touched.

http://www.razerzone.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_16&products_id=50