Jake Right. This is basically Geometry Wars. But that doesn’t make it bad. In fact, it makes it largely good. So: 2D, shoot in any direction, while moving in any direction. The d-pad obviously controls movement, and because this is a Nintendo DS game, you can choose to use the stylus to direct your fire instead …
I am not a snake but, unlike our delightful friends across the pond, I shorten mathematics to maths, not math. I had a number of American lecturers in my now distant mathematical past, so it doesn’t really bother me, but I like to make the distinction nonetheless. Getting to the point, Nintendo is going to …
Well that’s a relief: LittleBigPlanet is coming to PSP in 2009. A relief because it’s still the only thing really tempting me to buy a PlayStation 3, so I don’t need to now. It makes sense though. With neither PSP nor PlayStation 3 exactly flying off the shelves, the best tactic is to throw every …
Pop-Up Pirate! ranks below even Buckaroo on the scale of incredibly basic childhood games. You insert small plastic swords into slots in a barrel until, by pure chance, you hit the slot that makes the pirate pop out of the barrel this time. The infant entertainment comes from the pirate popping out of the barrel, …
New Scientist – as proper a scientific website as you could ask for – brings news of a European emulation project called KEEP (Keeping Emulation Environments Portable). It’s going to cost over €4 million, and last 36 months. Our own University of Portsmouth is one of the participants. It’s aim is wide: to safeguard access …
This Week’s Games It’s Friday the 13th, the scariest day possible. So what do we have released today? Hotel for Dogs, Disney’s Bolt, Ben 10 and Petz. Though admittedly they’re all on DS, hardly the format of choice for developers trying to scare people. FEAR 2: Project Origin sounds more appropriate. Unless I’m completely out …
The Eidos share price has more than doubled this morning, on the news that Square Enix has made an offer for the company. The motivation is obvious, and as Yoichi Wada, President of Square Enix, puts it: “Eidos’ products are highly complementary to our business and will accelerate our aggressive expansion into Western markets.” Chairman …
The nominations for the British Academy Video Game Awards have been announced, and make for really rather dull reading. For the sake of it: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has seven nominations; Grand Theft Auto IV has six; Fable II and LittleBigPlanet have five each. Anyway, what struck me were the categories. I can …
Snowed in? Bored? Then, apropos of nothing, allow me to point you in the direction of The Nishikado by the tremendous Silvery. Where can you hear it? Why, on the band’s MySpace page of course. It mainly consists of chanting the name of Space Invaders creator Toshihiro Nishikado. It is excellent. While you’re at it, …
I must have been faintly aware that LocoRoco 2 was on its way, but its release around these parts in November last year passed me by, as these things have a habit of doing. It wasn’t until the deluge of sales emails hit my inbox that I noticed it. In short: it’s more of the …
SCE big man Kaz Hirai has been trying to reassure the PlayStation faithful that they’ve made the right choice in an interview with the Official PlayStation Magazine. Which I’ve now shamelessly pilfered from Eurogamer. “This is not meant in terms of numbers, or who’s got the biggest install base, or who’s selling most in any …
The BBC has properly reported on 2008’s video game sales figures, as released by ELSPA and GfK Chart-Track. Basically: we’re buying more games than ever, and across all formats. But it’s not that I’m interested in. Unit and pound figures have been released, meaning we know the average price people are paying for games on …
It’s the festive season, so rubbish features are a requirement. Hence this Twelve Games of Christmas. We’ll skip to the end, shall we? On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: The King of Fighters XII, » Winning Eleven, » Final Fantasy X, FIFA 09, Mario Party 8, » Ridge Racer …
In a recent spate of tidying, I had cause to go through a box of old console paraphernalia, which I’d left without a lid on. It reminded me how much we’ve moved on. Controller cables, for one thing. From the last generation of cabled consoles, PlayStation 2 definitely wins: even though my blue pad has …
I maintain that Zoo Keeper is the best Nintendo DS game. I know that, by any objective measure, it isn’t. But I don’t care. So I approached Cradle of Rome with little short of hostility – I thought it was a stupid title for a stupid game. Hostility because it is, essentially, the same game: …