Two people named Jennifer and Jeff wanted to make their pregnancy announcement in a special and unique way, so they did the only reasonable thing: enlisted the aid of footage from the original Star Wars.
You’ve just spent a boatload of money on Apple’s new iPad and now the time has come to show it off to friends and family. They expect to be impressed and wowed, so you had better deliver a quality presentation that really shows off its various strengths. What follows are 12 excellent apps covering a wide-range of areas, from games to utilities, that should do an excellent job in justifying your new technological wonder.
Warpgate HD
If you’re old enough to remember the glory days of space-trading sims like Elite and Privateer, then you’ll feel right at home with Warpgate HD. This is a beautifully realized, very polished real-time space exploration, combat and trading game offering a mammoth universe, tons of combat, excellent graphics, great sounds and oodles of missions. Warpgate will show off the processing-power of your iPad as well as its brilliant use of touch-controls to navigate the streamlined interface. Warpgate HD is $7.99 on iTunes.
Pocket Legends
I’ve probably put more time into Pocket Legends than any other game currently available for the iPad. This is an excellent game that will remind many of Diablo, featuring 3D graphics that are lush with details, fast-paced gameplay and seamless multiplayer. If you thought you’d never see an MMO on the iPad, then Pocket Legends explodes that theory and promises a great future for the genre. Pocket Legends is free to download and play, though you won’t be able to progress past level 13 unless you pay $1.99 for an expansion pack. Pocket Legends is Free on iTunes
Words With Friends
Words With Friends won’t impress from a technical standpoint, but it will illustrate one of the many strong-points of the iPad, namely turn-based multiplayer games that you can pick up and play at any moment. Words With Friends is basically Scrabble with a different name, but the game is essentially the same. However, one big selling point that Words with Friends has over its competitor, EA’s Scrabble, is that you can have 20 concurrent games running at any time. Once you dive into the world of Words with Friends you will become hopelessly addicted. Words With Friends is $2.99 on iTunes read more…
Despite its scheduled release of yet another update to its long-running handheld line by way of the DSi XL on March 28, Nintendo has shown no signs of slowing down its portable lineup. The company officially announced today that it will release a new, backwards-compatible, 3D-enabled handheld next year tentatively titled the “3DS.”
The news comes by way of an official .pdf file on NCL’s Japanese website stating that the company “will launch ‘Nintendo 3DS’ (temp) during the fiscal year ending March 2011.” The press release further states that the handheld will feature “3D effects without the need for any special glasses.”
The 3DS will be the official successor to the Nintendo DS series of handhelds and will include backwards compatibility with DS and DSi games. The company also stated that it would announce further details at this year’s E3, scheduled for June 15 in Los Angeles. However, the New York Times has reported that not only will the new handheld be on display at E3, but Nintendo will “invite people to play with the new device then.”
Speculation has surfaced that the system will utilize an analog stick, rumble feedback and accelerometers. The screens are expected to be under 4 inches in size. As to how the handheld can display 3D images without the need of glasses, Yomiuri Shimbun is reporting that it will use a Sharp 3D LCD panel, which uses display technology that covers the screen with a small film, separated from the screen by a small space to create a 3D effect from the slight differences in the image seen by the right and left eyes.
No further details have been announced. We look forward to seeing Nintendo’s new handheld at what is sure to be a circus of an E3 this year.
In the mean time you can listen to Jools Watsham, co-owner and game director of independent game developer Renegade Kid, share his thoughts on the 3DS.
Advertising wars in the video game industry always amuse me. Perhaps it’s my overwhelming sense of nostalgia from the heated 16-bit war between Nintendo and Sega. Or perhaps I just like seeing blood on the floor.
Either way, Sony is coming out with both arms swinging (no, really, watch the video) in its new commercial for the PlayStation Move controller apparently launching in November. The video takes a few jabs at the competition (*cough* Wii, Natal *cough*) by mocking waggle and catching red balls that fall from the sky. The commercial claims to come from the distant future of “December 2010″ wherein Move is a success, and Sony would like to thank you for making it so successful. A bit of a bold claim, eh?
The video doesn’t really try to market to new users, instead falling back on amusing existing PS3 owners and touting allegedly superior hardware specs. But it is an interesting watch nonetheless, and we’ll all have to check back in December to see if Sony’s marketing prediction was really as insightful as it claims.
In the mean time, you can probably bet on Microsoft launching its own marketing counter-attack soon. That should be even more entertaining.
Today’s gamer question is a tough one, one that can be debated until the end of time and even then a clear answer may not be attained.
Which is more lame?
Above you see the recently introduced Sony Motion Controller. It looks like something your girlfriend or wife would use to stimulate their nether-regions; facts are facts. It is also known that the simple act of holding this horribly designed controller will reduce your testosterone and drain you of any remaining machismo.
The above video includes what has to be one of the worst ideas in sound design for a video game EVER. Whoever thought this was a good idea should go work at Infinity Ward, get fired, and be escorted out of the building under armed guard. I mean really, the warning siren in Bad Company 2 is so loud, so overbearing that it requires a volume adjustment every time it starts. Hell, it’s so bad there is a petition up on the EA boards to have it removed, a petition that now stretches 75 pages. Now, one could argue that if you don’t want to hear it then you shouldn’t lose. Valid argument. What say you?
Which is more lame? Submit your answers in the comments below!
Darwinia+ is finally available on Xbox Live Arcade after an extended development cycle of over four years. Darwinia+ was created by Introversion, one of the best independent game developers on the planet with several classic (and award-winning) PC games under their belt, including Darwinia, Multiwinia, Defcon and Uplink.
Darwinia+ gets nearly everything right on the Xbox, albeit with a few caveats. First off, the price is simply too high. I personally think 1200 points is a great value considering how much gameplay is on offer, but I’m in the position of being a self-professed Darwinia-freak and as such, have a complete understanding of the game and its concepts. This places me in the minority. Most Xbox 360 players will have never heard of Darwinia and will be quick to disregard it based on nothing more than its retro-graphics. Too bad, their loss.
A lower price-point of 800 would have made impulsive and/or exploratory purchases far more likely. At 1200, Darwinia is pricing itself away from experimentation and distancing itself from gamers who may not be able to perceive the game’s value based on the trial version. Additionally, Microsoft has been discounting a considerable number of games lately and players are well aware that a discount will hit Darwinia at some future date, so fence-sitters are prone to remain on their asses until the price comes down.
My second problem with Darwinia is the camera-scheme that kicks in when controlling a Squad. It does its best to position itself correctly, based on the elevation of nearby terrain, but it’s not what I would call perfect or some semblance of perfection. Fortunately, you can work with it and bend it towards your will by releasing control of your squad and repositioning the camera at a better angle, though it doesn’t completely resolve the problem.
True resolution of the Squad Tracking Camera issue will only be found in a patch and I see it working as such: Darwinia currently has two ways of selecting available squads/engineers, via bumper-buttons or directional-pad (left-right). You only need one scheme, so drop the bumpers for squad selection and use it for rotating the camera while the directional pad cycles through units. Problem solved. I waive my consultation fee.
While the camera is a minor problem at best and one that can be dealt with, the price is less surmountable. What you need are valid reason to buy Darwinia+, reasons that may not be entirely obvious in the limited trial version. Without further ado…
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