Got a Japanese 60GB PS3 for Christmas, here are my thoughts.

Premise

Bigger, better and more expensive than the competition. The best graphics, motion sensitive controller, blueray, wi-fi, hard-drive, photos, music, video, games, internet…. could they have put any more in the box?

Hardware

Big, shiny and bold. The PS3 looks alright, not really like a games machine but also not really like a hi-fi component. It does look expensive so score on that one. The machine is easy to set up and running it in 1080i or 720p (still can’t decide which is better and I don’t have 1080p) it looks amazing on my HD LCD TV. I do think I prefer Sony’s Cross Media Bar (XMB) to Microsoft’s blades on the 360, it is just a lot quicker to get around the system with the XMB. Graphically I think it is too difficult to call on which is more powerful 360 or PS3 and frankly I am not that bothered as long as games look good and play well on what ever system then I will be happy. 

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Got this one for Christmas. Not really the best game in the world Ubisoft

Premise

Shoot bad guys, slash bad guys, save fiancé. Revolutionary way to play using the Wii Remote. Ho Hum Ubisoft there is a good game in there somewhere maybe you should have finished it before shipping it? Bad controls, bad graphics and a teeny bit racist (in my opinion).

Controls

These are just appalling. Aiming and turning should not be so jerky or hard. Turning means pointing so far to the side of the screen that your arms tire very quickly. And why can you not adjust this? Shoot and lock on buttons are a neat touch but get mired under the rest of the controls. Fire fights are so haphazard because of this that what is one of the games main selling points becomes a pitiful mess.

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So my big pre-Christmas game was Zelda. There is nothing like sitting down at Christmas time and visiting Hyrule once again.

Premise

Nothing much has changed to the age old Zelda concept. Get the master sword, save the princess (Zelda), slay bosses in innumerable dungeons oh and then defeat Ganon. But the neat thing is all the new twists Nintendo have introduced to these familiar concepts. There is again a two world situation going on this time the twilight and the real ones and Link must navigate between them. Unfortunately for him he is transformed into a wolf any time he enters the twilight world (well at least at the start of the game).

Hyrule

Wil a similar layout to the classic Ocarina of Time, Hyrule plays on your nostalgia (the Gamecube version has the same layout as Ocarina, the Wii version is mirrored so that Link is right handed), the crumbling temple of time being a particular favourite of mine. Walking in there for the first time sends a shiver down your spine.

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Ok so I picked up a Wii in Hong Kong before Christmas and it along with a bunch of other things has made me slack. Anyway here are my thoughts:

Premise

Revolutionise the video games industry by giving it a neat new way to play.

Wii Remote

As we all know the main feature of the Wii is the Remote. This motion sensing beauty is used to point, pitch, shake, turn, push, pull and a whole host of other things me and other designers probably haven’t thought of yet (well maybe except Nintendo). The Remote sits really nicely in your hand and is a joy to use. My only current complaint is that pointing can sometimes be tricky because when you are pointing off screen there is no way of knowing how far off you are and so you can easily over shoot.

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Well we are slowly getting through the Bit Generations series hopefully I will have them all done before 2007!

Premise

Digidrive at first glance appears to be really complex and strange but after playing it for half an hour and working out what you have to do it becomes really addictive. It is probably closest to something like tetris or columns as it is a sorting game. The twist here is you are sorting traffic.

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Wow! That’s is one of the best words to describe Dead Rising. It is such a unique take on the Zombie genre at to my mind the most fun. Sure Resident Evil 4 was great but for me most Zombie games find themselves hamstrung by the fact that Zombies are slow. Not Capcom. Here we have slow, stupid Zombies but so much fun!

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Ok so this write up of the Bit Generations series is taking a while. I’ll try to speed things up over the next while. I’m off on holiday soon so maybe can do a bit of writing while i’m away and post loads when I get back!

Premise

Boundish is Bit Generations take on Pong and is probably the worst and most basic of all of the games. Only really one for complete-ists if you ask me. There are several takes on Pong here from the standard one paddle per side to more extreme variants like one situated on a record player…

Conclusion

There really isn’t much else to say about Boundish. It is a many flavoured clone of Pong with a bit of local wi-fi multiplayer thrown in. If you are after a great but unique take on Pong you should check out Pong for the PS1 published by Atari (shameless plug for the first game I worked on). It has many fun and unique takes on the bat versus ball game mechanic and will set you back loads less than Boundish.

-Nic

Well I have got my 360 back And it seems to be working perfectly! I have stopped playing Enchant Arms while I get stuck into a bit of Dead Rising (lvl 45 now and onto Overtime Mode).

I’m really enjoying Dead Rising and will try to do a write up of my thoughts sometime soon. Hopefully before I get my hands on Gears of War (which is looking to be a fine game).

-Nic

So I wrote the whole overview to Bit Generations a couple of weeks ago and am only now managing to get round to writing up my thoughts on Dotstream (who knows when the next ones will come along…).

Premise

Dotstream is Bit Generations take on racing. Simple in both gameplay and graphics (perhaps paired down is a better phrase). You control a coloured square which, from the word go, is always moving right leaving a glowing line of colour in your wake. All you can do is; steer up or down, turbo or collide with stuff. You have to do a number of laps (usually 2) and come first to win.

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I’ve had the whole Bit Generations series for a few weeks now and thought it was about time I wrote a little bit about them.

Premise

The whole idea of Bit Generations is: really simple, pure yet modern games (think clean graphic design, electronic music and clean game play). There are 7 games in all with each one coming in its own beautiful packaging and on a Gameboy Advance cart. Its a liitle bit expensive seeing as they could all fit on one but then you wouldn’t be able to have a significant other playing one while you play the other. Each game focuses on a popular gaming type: puzzle, racing, adventure, audio and simplifies it to its core. Dot stream for example is Bit Generations take on racing, think Tron light cycles, you can only steer up or down, you leave a light trail, crossing another trail slows you down and you start with 3 lives/turbos.

Happiness

As someone who is going through prototyping at the moment and trying to set up his own games company these games reinforce why I am doing what I am doing. Each of these games shows that a simple concept with simple yet beautiful graphics can still be fun and purchased by games players. They are in essence, to me, what our prototype should be like. If I can get our demo(s) to be as fun and as pure as this then I will be very happy.

More to come

I hope to do more writing about Bit Generations in the coming weeks.

-Nic