Our first thought upon seeing this very cool hack was "that's awesome." Our second thought was "do you have to blow on it to make it work?"
BenHeck.com forum member "darkeru" created this inventive new take on a home made NES portable, which manages to squeeze all of the 8-bit dynamo's guts into a 4.1" by 5.5" space ... with a backlit LCD display. We just had a third thought: what happens when you connect it to this portable NES?
Alan R. Moon's Ticket to Ride has only been out for four years, but it has picked up several prestigious board gaming awards, and is quickly becoming a popular "haul it out of the closet and get yer game on" addition to game night. Last week, the Xbox Live Arcade version was released, joining Catan, Carcassonne, and Lost Cities as games that have breached the digital divide. But how does it stack up against the freebie Java version, and the board game itself? Read on, ticket holders, and find out.
The PlayStation Phone? Not quite. But it's clear that Sony is keen to get in on the growing mobile gaming business, especially in the wake of Apple's recent iPhone game announcements.
Speaking of the iPhone, take a look, if you will, at the Sony Ericsson F305. Sure, it's sporting some decidedly old-school graphics on-screen, but what you can't see are motion controls under the hood. Our pals at Engadget report that the (officially) yet-unannounced phone contains an accelerometer to facilitate motion-based control, a la the iPhone. Plus, if you look at the right side of the handset (turned horizontally) you'll notice two familiar buttons: "X" and "O." There's also a prominent D-Pad on the phone's face, along with a distintive PlayStation-controller-iconified button.
The phone will reportedly come with three pre-installed games – Bowling, Bass Fishing, and Jockey – which all make use of the accelerometer. Not quite God of War, or even Super Monkey Ball, but it could signal a proverbial testing of the waters for Sony.
With the impending launch of the iPhone App Store promising to finally (officially) bring games to Apple's all-in-one portable, a Forbes editorial is again floating the idea that Nintendo's DS may be facing a threat to its market-leading portable perch. The editorial notes that the iPhone combines the touch-screen and microphone of the wildly popular Nintendo DS with the motion-sensitivity of the wildly popular Wii. Add in the support of Sega, EA and Ubisoft, along with the ability to download games wirelessly through the App Store, and you have the makings of a portable gaming game-changer.
The piece makes some good points, but we think we're going to join with The Motley Fool, MacWorld and ZDNet in the ranks of those skeptical that the iPhone is going to take the gaming world by storm. The reasons for our skepticism include the iPhone's high price point, limited on-board storage space and the lack of major announced titles (Super Monkey Ball and Spore will only get you so far).
The MacWorld writer probably summed it up best: "The iPhone, at its heart, is not a gaming machine. Not in the way that the DS is, where every design consideration is given to one task, and one task only: playing games." Hey, since we're already talking about wild speculation, there's always a chance Apple and Nintendo could just merge and make the upcoming "battle" moot.
The homebrew community lurves the Nintendo DS, and it's no surprise why: a portable system with WiFi capabilities, two screens, and none of the firmware-updating nonsense that the PSP has become infamous for? If we had the skills, we'd be 'brewing it up too.
Luckily, our BFF's over at DS Fanboy have put together an incredibly handy guide to the best DS homebrew peripherals, and what to do with them once they arrive on your doorstep. It even comes with a handy glossary, so you can feel cool and start dropping terms like "MoonShell" and "DLDI." Instant homebrew cred!
This video was released a couple of months ago, but if there's one thing we can't pass up it's a great sight gag. You have to respect a guy who would go through all the trouble of merging a Wiimote and a plastic AK-47 just so he could use the butt of the gun to smash the noses of the titular critters in Rayman Raving Rabbids.
What's more, the modder actually goes through the trouble of teaching you how to tie a shemagh to help increase the verisimilitude of your experience. What a value!
With 100 million units sold to its name, The Sims is certainly the most prolific PC game in history, if not the most popular. The milestone says a lot about the industry and consumer tastes, as well as Electronic Arts and the gaming giant's love of little computer people ... and money.
We recently had the opportunity to speak with The Sims' studio head Rod Humble about the brand he holds so dear. Over the course of the conversation we went back and forth on a number of topics, from the expansions that never were to what he felt has been key to The Sims' widespread success. If you are at all a fan of the series, jump into the pool. We promise not to delete the ladder after you dive in.
A turn-based RPG, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood moves the speedy Sega characters into a role-playing world. After a big, "Huh?" I gave this DS-only game a shot at the Nintendo Media Summit. But especially with Bioware behind the project, I came away thinking it could be a fun game for kids and even adult RPG players. And forget Sonic; the deep game mechanics, dialogue options, and great-looking world could combine into a portable RPG favorite.
My surprise of the week: Space Invaders Extreme. I played a few rounds at the Nintendo Media Summit since there was no line for the lonely kiosk. (Its PR handlers had even abandoned it, working double-duty at the Crystal Chronicles station across the room.) But as soon as I began tapping the buttons, I was hooked; this update borrows the basic idea of Space Invaders and remixes it into a wild, fast-paced shooter.
Like the classic, enemy ships make formations above you, raining shots down the screen. Otherwise, nearly everything else has been squeezed, twisted, and stretched into a modern game. The transition deserves comparison to our laudedPac-Man Championship Edition, but I haven't yet decided if its as elegant an update. Regardless, an update is an update, and Space Invaders Extreme betters nearly every other current shooter.
Activision and Nintendo briefly demonstrated Guitar Hero: On Tour at last week's Nintendo Media Summit. As previously announced, the portable rhythm game includes a four-fret controller that slips into the DS GBA slot. A stylus shaped like a guitar pick can be stored inside and pulled out for portable rocking.
Guitar Hero: On Tour includes the same kind of career mode and single-song play as Guitar Hero III; many of the portable songs also overlap with other versions of the game. But 20 new tracks, a few control twists, and a new versus mode should make it more than Guitar Hero Lite.
All you jerks out there who are used to lording your shiny new DS Lites over Phat-owning early-adopters might have to get used to playing second fiddle soon. In the latest issue of Japanese gaming rag Famitsu, publisher Hirokazu Hamamura speculates that a new version of Nintendo's best-selling handheld may be revealed at this summer's E3 trade show.
As detailed in a Bloomberg Japan report (sketchy machine translation), Hamamura's comments seem based on nothing more than industry chatter and pure conjecture on his part -- Nintendo predictably offered up a no comment. The timing does seem about right, though -- going back to the Game Boy days, Nintendo has released a new portable hardware revision roughly every two years since 1996's Game Boy Pocket (1998: Game Boy Color; 2001: Game Boy Advance; 2003: GBASP; 2004: Nintendo DS; 2005: Game Boy Micro; 2006: DS Lite). What would you like to see on a potential DS upgrade? Let us know in the comments.
The technology is being shown off at the CTIA wireless event this week in Las Vegas, and will allow users to access the 3D world of Second Life, as well as communicate with in-game avatars via text and SMS. The application is due to launch on Samsung phones running Softboard software in the second half of this year. Huzzah?
The Wii Sports on iPhone gag is nothing more than an unclickable banner ad, making us wish the joke was taken a bit further. The Betamax to HD-DVD converter, on the other hand, is quite the stroke of genius. The idea alone is brilliant, made even more so by the "promotional" video, viewable after the break.
A French retail site has listed Grand Theft Auto IV for Nintendo DS on a sheet of upcoming releases. Tucked inconspicuously in between titles like Kung Fu Panda and Harvest Moon, it's most likely that the listing of the game for DS is a slip-up, and not indicative of any "OMG"-worthy news. The possibility for a slip-up seems even more likely when Guitar Hero: On Tour is erroneously labeled as Guitar Hero 3 on the same list.
What stands out as a bit odd, however, is the listed release date of June 15, 2008, a far cry from the international release date of April 29 for the actually-real console version. It's enough to give us pause, but not enough to keep us from breaking out the skeptical sauce. As awesome as a classic, top-down GTA on DS would be, we've got a feeling that it's just not in the cards.
Capcom has announced that Mega Man Star Force 2 will be out for the DS in June for $30. This action-RPG follow-up to last year's game follows in its Pokemon-like style, releasing in two different editions: Zerker X Saurian and Zerker X Ninja. (Huh. Where's the love for Ninja X Saurian?)
The local- and WiFi-network-able game relies on collecting new characters and collaborating with friends. With the right connections, players assemble a "portfolio of Battle Cards with distinct attributes," according to a Capcom fact sheet. We've been trying to get the kids -- and our closeted adult gamer friends -- off Pokemon for years. Maybe this is a step in the right direction?
Hands-on with Spore. All of it. With Will Wright feeding us commentary.
Everything you could ever want to know about Game & Watch. And a whole lot more.
In-game XMB? Trophies? We take a look at PS3's firmware 2.40
Diablo 3 announced! OMGWTF(hellfire)BBQ!
Highlights from Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational 2008!
Listen to the Joystiq Podcast (because your ears can't read)
Posts in category portable
With the impending launch of the iPhone App Store promising to finally (officially) bring games to Apple's all-in-one portable, a Forbes editorial is again floating the idea that Nintendo's DS may be facing a threat to its market-leading portable perch. The editorial notes that the iPhone combines the touch-screen and microphone of the wildly popular Nintendo DS with the motion-sensitivity of the wildly popular Wii. Add in the support of Sega, EA and Ubisoft, along with the ability to download games wirelessly through the App Store, and you have the makings of a portable gaming game-changer.
