Over at Gamasutra late last week, our new Features Editor, Christian Nutt had a chance to talk to Ken Koyama from Yuke's North American office - and it's pretty interesting to see the Japanese firm, "best known in the U.S. as the developer of the massively popular WWE Smackdown vs. Raw series for THQ", make a move into the States as a niche publisher - thus far debuting the relatively unsuccessful (as far as I know?) D1 Grand Prix.

The company was promoting its DS puzzle title Neves, which is 'seven' backwards, and is a tangram-based game licensed from Hanayama Toys, who first debuted 'Hanayama Lucky Puzzle' in 1935 - old school 'casual games' from way back - Koyama notes: "We have exclusive licensing with Hanayama, and they have a whole line of puzzle games that we could probably bring over to the DS."

Also notable is the possibility of Yuke's publishing anime-licensed titles it's created in Japan, like Berserk and Armored Trooper Votoms ("We're trying to see what we can do and what we can bring over"), as well as some honesty about why the company isn't located on one of the coasts ("One of the reasons we're in Chicago is based in the fact that the cost of living -- the amount of rent and stuff like that -- is a lot cheaper in Chicago than it is in like the West coast, or in New York. Obviously, that played a role for us to be in Illinois.") Neat interview.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

One of the cool things about the relative accessibility of Sony's PSP and Nintendo's DS is that you get some pretty sophisticated 'homebrew' programming for them, and even indie developers and publishers can make and release games.

But one of the issues with that low-budget 'clones' can quickly spring up, and European publisher Xider just put out a press release about an absolutely shameless (pictured) one, Luminator for DS - the catchy sounding 'Spieleflut.de' has more screenshots of the game.

The press release reveals: "XIDER Games will be making its first venture into the Nintendo DS format with Luminator DS, a puzzle-strategy game with a modern soundtrack and updated Tetris-style play which will banish your Rubik’s Cube to the attic permanently... Construction combos are needed as the player aims to turn their building blocks into valuable points... Luminator DS offers the player a constantly evolving challenge with two difficulty levels in ‘normal mode’ and three in ‘puzzle mode’, plus music to add tension and enhance enjoyment."

But come on - in what way can Xider think they can get away with this? The screenshots clearly reveal that the game even has similar style block designs and the horizontally moving 'scan thing' from the original PSP version of the most excellent Tetsuya Mizuguchi co-created puzzle game. And then there's the small matter of the first 5 letters of the title being 'accidentally' the same. So I'm presuming someone will do something about this.

Anyhow, I was most of the way through finalizing this post when I noticed Got Game's PSP title 'Puzzle Scape', which has already shipped to stores, and boy, it's another borderline iffy Lumines clone/ripoff. As the publicity page explains:

"Escape to block-busting puzzles and pulsating beats in this exciting new puzzle game for your PSP system! Be entranced by brilliant, interactive evolutionary backgrounds from cells to dream-like landscapes in four unique themes over 40 levels. Level by addictive level, unlock fresh colors and luscious beats in either time and goal-oriented play or score-oriented play."

So nothing at all like Q's puzzler, then? Although having said that, as the Finnish creators at Farmind explain in an interview: "You manipulate the blocks that have already landed (not the ones that are falling) by swapping them horizontally. You must build a 2x2 square of blocks of the same color to explode them. If you add more adjacent same-colored blocks, they will create a chain reaction and explode as well." So there is at least a slight twist on the action - does that make it fair enough? Hmm.

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Just posted at sister site Gamasutra today, an intriguing interview with Austin-based indie DS developers Renegade Kid, which has just signed to publisher Gamecock with a very interesting-looking 3D survival horror game, Dementium: The Ward.

It really does seem like they're doing neat things with the hardware, as co-founder Jools Watsham (obviously adept with the ol' assembly language from old school days!) explains: "One thing that is really interesting are the dynamic lights, which fade off into and out of certain areas, particularly with the flashlight, which offers a great contrast. There is also this idea of fog, which adds a degree of atmosphere. We have some nice moody lights in there as well. Talking about the flashlight, we were amazed when we got that working... you can really light up enemy characters. It's all dynamic."

Watsham's comments also show handsomely how the rise of the DS helps the rise of the indie developer (albeit a higher-end indie developer than just a 'bedroom programmer', perhaps): "Generally speaking, the average DS game can be created by a team of 4 to 8 people. This of course depends on your timeline for the game, or how ambitious it is... We have 3 core staff and 5 outsourced. The thing to remember is that those outsourced members didn't come on until about half way or third of the way into the project."

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The folks at The New Gamer have been musing on life after completing Puzzle Quest - or rather more specifically, life trudging around the game world purgatory after the final boss has been defeated in the super-addictive title.

Writer G. Turner explains of the DS version: "The credits roll, and you continue on, searching for some real closure, a real battle or some sort of finality to the tale. And then you end up in my predicament: Endlessly roaming the monster-strewn lands, clinging to arbitrary landmarks like level numbers, town capture counts, et-cetera – constantly marching across the landscape looking for something of substance... I keep hoping that, finally, my character will have some complete and utter impact on the lands, that all those I've interacted in will pronounce the lands free of evil, free of conflict and that they can finally live their lives in peace."

Wow, this sounds like a downright karmic bummer: "I don't like putting down games because of apathy or attrition. I much prefer doing so because the game knows better. The creators draw a line in the sand and say 'You won't get much more from here on out. It's time to let go.' But Puzzle Quest instead simply piled on side-quests and menial objectives, hinting at something more, something that might bring the lands together or weave all of the subplots together in a brilliant final scene, or even simply transform the map in some manner." Instead we're somewhere, out there...

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Import store NCSX continues to reveal some fascinating and fairly obscure DS games coming out of Japan, and the latest is called 'Kurikin: Nano Island Story', and is, we kid you not, a microbial life combat game, apparently created by Media Kite.

NCSX explains of the title: "Wee beasties are on the rampage and it's your prerogative to make sure they are marshaled properly to destroy other wee beasties. In the early missions, players control masses of nano creatures known as "kin" that look like dispersions of dust on the touch screen. The top display features a magnified examination of the kin, some of which look like paramecium while others look like clams with movable shells. To send the beasties into war, scribble a circle around them and then swish the stylus in a direction to mobilize them against enemy forces. "

What's more, you have to watch the solution you're swimming in to get an idea of battle tactics, apparently: "Similar to actual microbial life forms, the kin in the game are affected by temperatures and PH level. Some kin do better in warmer temperatures than others while an alkaline PH may lower the viability of certain kin." This is probably a bit quirky for Western release, but that's a shame, because it sounds pretty intriguing.

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Disney is getting _really_ interesting in the game space recently, and here's the latest example from the House Of Mickey:

"Timed to the release of the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End video games, Disney Interactive Studios announced today a partnership with Walt Disney Parks and Resorts to release exclusive content for the upcoming Nintendo DS video game at Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort."

Specifically: "Beginning May 22 with the release of the video game, Disney park guests who bring their Nintendo DS and a copy of the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End DS video game with them during their visit can download new video game content at specific "X-marks-the-spot" hotspots hidden near the Pirates of the Caribbean attractions. This download unlocks new content such as unlimited health and "savvy," as well as fun extras, including additional costumes. This special content is only available to Disney park visitors and can be accessed with a Nintendo DS."

Personally, I love the idea of wandering around a Disney park with my DS to get extra content in specific places, especially if that content can only _ever_ be unlocked that way and it's cool and bonus. Not sure about unlocking 'cheats' that way like unlimited health - that seems a bit potentially game breaking. But hey, as long as the extra costumes are neat and the game itself is decent, I'm not complaining. More ideas like this, please!

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Over at The2Bears, they've spotted a cool piece of DS homebrew, called Maelstrom DS, and clearly an abstract 3D tribute to classic arcade title Tempest.

Excerpting from the tech information: "Much of the code for MaelstromDS is the same as that in the original GBA version, the major change being that the DS has 3D hardware built in, and therefore there is no need for the code to transform the scene into 2D lines. Additionally, the view can be moved by touching and dragging the screen."

What's more: "Finally, the transparency of the outside of the tunnel is achieved by drawing the tunnel twice. Once with the polygons set to solid and the front faces drawn, then with the polygons set to half transparent and the back faces drawn. This is necessary because the DS cannot correctly handle multiple transparent polygons drawn on top of each other." Cute tech information, fun title!

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, we've started a new feature over at our GameCareerGuide.com educational site, which includes analysis of the design of major titles from interesting folks. The first one is an in-depth analysis of Animal Crossing: Wild World for the DS from the saintly (and just slightly crazy) Eric-Jon Waugh.

It's actually called 'Ambition And Compulsory Design In Animal Crossing', and here's a brief extract: "Animal Crossing is sort of an anti-game - if by "game" we're talking about a goal-oriented production where you collect 100% of the allotted trinkets before blowing up the last boss real good. Or if we're thinking of a sandbox, where the player is left unsupervised to conduct middle school science experiments with a game's reality. Neither is this a "god game", where you're given an omnipotent and omniscient overview of a certain scenario - resulting in a sort of a sandbox through a telescope."

"The best way I can think of to explain Animal Crossing, strictly in modern videogame terms, is Shenmue without the plot. This isn't a minor distinction, though the reasons aren't as straightforward as they sound. In Shenmue the plot serves as a vague MacGuffin, creating a cognitive dissonance in the player between what knowledge of videogame law and the protagonist's sense of honor (a fun parallel, that) compels the player to do, and what alternative paths the gameworld thrusts before the player." The full piece is lots more 'wacky' fun along those lines!

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A relatively unheralded Nintendo DS release of recent weeks has been EA's multi-game puzzle title Pogo Island, in which you can "... Hone your skills at five classic Pogo games, including Poppit!, Word Whomp, Squelchies, Tri-Peaks Solitaire, and Phlinx."

The 'Pogo' of which this speaks is EA's tremendously successful casual game website - as I speak (8.10pm PST on a Sunday night) there's allegedly 261,000 people online), and, though the game itself is on the average side, featuring basic-looking DS versions of the Puzzle Bobble and Bookworm-style titles which are a big hit on Pogo - the points-based connectivity is very interesting.

As the IGN review notes: "For those who use Pogo.com, EA added a pretty cool ability to upload earned tokens from within the adventure to your [Pogo] account using the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service. This function links the DS game with the Web-based network in a limited fashion, but if you're always on Pogo.com trying to earn tokens to enter their weekly cash drawings, this is a nice way to bulk up your odds of winning the prize money."

Of course, the game itself isn't that hot, and none of the titles even have online multiplayer connectivity. But the idea of earning points on your handheld to do something on the web (or away from your DS), with information transfer via DS Wi-Fi, seems like a potent one - and for hardcore Pogo addicts, that alone may be enough to get them to go and buy EA's product. More of this, plz!

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sure, we at GSW get sent some strange promotional items from time to time, but this latest one - which came in a larger box filled with packing, and mystified us, soon sorted itself out as a cereal-based tribute to a recently released Hudson game for the Nintendo DS:

So this would be a custom breakfast food box for DS puzzle title Honeycomb Beat, in which you "...Solve puzzles by clicking on honeycomb tiles to match their color to the playfield." Actually, Konami/Hudson already sent us the game a few weeks back, but their authentic-looking cereal packaging is neat - and it really has honeycomb cereal inside (Post brand, for those intrigued).

Uhoh. Our dachshund Rollo has discovered the secret wrapped inside the mystery, like Charlton Heston in Soylent Green. Yep - 'Honeycomb Beat is EDIIIIIIIBLE!'.

OK, that's great. You can step away from the box, we've finished modeling it now, Rollo. Rollo? Rollo? (Frenzied crunching noises ensue.)

[Oh yeah, so this reminds me - if you'd like to send GSW relevant and/or weird stuff (games, books, CDs, promo stuff), here's our snail-mail address: GameSetWatch, c/o Simon Carless, CMP Game Group, 600 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94107. And editors@gamesetwatch.com get us, too. You know what to do!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You may remember that I had an in-depth trawl of GameFly's pre-release information a few weeks back, happening upon the following entry: "- Touch The Dead (Eidos, April 30th) - sounds like a logical title! Are there any Japanese zombie touching DS games that Eidos could import, or is this a whole new title? No info online at all."

Well, information has now broken (huzzah!), and MTV's Stephen Totilo has a cute write-up of the game (scroll down) as part of his Eidos game inspection festivities in New York. He notes: ""Touch the Dead," which Eidos initially planned to call "Dead and Furious," is a first-person shooter on rails. You don't control where the character moves, you just tap the touch screen in the right spots to shoot at the zombies. When you're out of ammo, you drag bullets to the gun."

What's more: "In later levels, the zombies throw their heads at you. The player has to touch those craniums into oblivion. The game, which is slated for May, is running off a crude 3-D engine. It may have been the worst-looking game that Eidos was showing. But it doesn't matter. It had me using a stylus to tap zombies to their doom. So I crown it the best new game I played Tuesday."

[Anyhow, looks like the game, instead of being imported from Japan, as I conjectured, is heavily Japanese-inspired but made by Dream On Studio, a French developer spun off from Infogrames Lyon. The studio also makes Winnie The Pooh's Rumbly Tumbly Adventure - bit of a stylistic contrast, there!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The folks at Buena Vista Games were kind enough to send over Meteos: Disney Magic for the Nintendo DS, and I'm going to continue the grand GSW tradition of only posting impressions of games created by Q Entertainment - of which this, alongside Lumines 2 for PS2, is the latest.

The first thing to note is the cute message on the back of the box: "Basic reading ability is needed to fully enjoy this game." And indeed it is, since there are several specifics tasks to be done in Story Mode which you have to understand in order to accomplish, such as blasting off particular types of block to complete levels.

Also worth commenting on is that this is actually an outsourced Q joint, as the credits explain: "Concept planning & Management: Q Entertainment; Development: ASPECT Co. Ltd, Platinum Egg Inc.; Product management: Jamsworks Co." All small Japanese devs, I think - if anyone knows anything about them, post in the comments. [UPDATE: Even before this went live, Brandon Sheffield has done the research for us - all hail the IC massif!]

So, the gameplay! I feel that being able to shuffle blocks both vertically and horizontally makes the game, sure, slightly more of a vanilla block-shuffler, but much more natural and fun to play. Meteos is fun, but for me it always felt like I had one hand tied behind my back while playing it because of the vertical only gameplay. (Though I believe that the hardest single-player level in Disney Magic has horizontal shuffling turned off, and turned on via a power-up?)

Something that I definitely appreciate is a little depth, and with silver and gold benchmarks to beat on each level in Meteos: Disney Magic (apart from an actual 'Stage Passed' milestone), you can keep going back to do better - though you need to play through levels in one sitting.

Also, the branching level structure after the 'Easy' stage in Story Mode is appreciated for a bit of variety. Honestly, the game doesn't seem that easy for a Disney-themed title, either. 'Normal' level was already reasonably challenging for me, and there's 'Hard' and 'Expert' after that, as well as various endless-style modes. There's a lot to keep you occupied there.

In addition, it's good to see another game with vertical orientation, something that started feeling more natural on DS after Brain Age did it. [Mind you, I don't think the original DS works quite so well vertically, ergonomically speaking, but the DS Lite certainly does.]

For me, the art was just a little bit 'vanilla', for some reason. I think I expected slightly twisted and cooler versions of Disney characters, but maybe I'm spoilt by Kingdom Hearts, which does that really well. And also, this is a game for kids and families, not for me, so they would likely be expecting regular depictions of their Disney favorites, from Toy Story through Lilo & Stitch and beyond - there's even Pirates Of The Caribbean in there somewhere. And Nightmare Before Christmas, of course - which looks cool, actually.

Overall, this is competent and playable, and I'm actually having more fun with it than the original Meteos. But it's not as cool and original IP and all that kinda of stuff, and you don't get to mess with planets and weird abstract signs. Hey - how about Disney characters traveling through the Meteos universe? That would have been the ultimate mash-up here. But I'm just spitballing now, and the fact is that this is a fine DS puzzler based on a neat concept (lacking only Wi-Fi play, boo), and well worth checking out.

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Right at the end of GDC week, there are quite a few random, semi-random, and entirely random Web posts, both about Game Developers Conference and not, that have occurred over the course of these 7 days. So here they are:

- There's nothing like a little rivalry, and over at 1UP, James Mielke compares Tekken and Virtua Fighter in a very much Vs. style, raging: "Where Virtua Fighter has gone, Tekken has always followed (and occasionally surpassed). In this feature we're going to break down each series in a number of critical categories and evaluate who comes out on top, determine who exactly is the winner, declare who is the champion of them all." You do that!

- I never ran into Gus Mastrapa at GDC (hi Gus!), but he made a cute post on the music used before/during the GDC keynotes, noting that Daft Punk "...was played at both of the convention's major keynotes. Just prior to Phil Harrison's talk Sony staged some emergent gameplay -- a soccer match played with inflatable soccer balls. The song "Around the World" looped as the audience batted the huge balls toward their respective goals. Before Shigeru Miyamoto's keynote today Nintendo looped a handful of Daft Punk songs from Discovery." Also: "In semi-related keynote music news, the creators of Little Big Planet played a good part of the Go! Team's debut record Thunder, Lightning, Strike during their presentation."

- Some good ol' eBay randomness - I was looking for a new watch this weekend, and ran into a big auction of Beatmania-branded watches, all sealed. Apparently, "They Vibrate, they have an alarm, and they blink!", though I'm still trying to work out whether they're ugly or G-Shock-ish gimmicky fun from the grainy picture. Anyhow, for $10 including shipping, even with needing new batteries, y'know, it's worth a quizzical look.

- N'Gai Croal ended up posting a couple of non-GDC-specific exclusives into his blog this week, and he revealed that Ubisoft is publishing Jam Sessions for the DS, a conversion of the previously GSW-mentioned and extremely clever DS guitar sim 'M-06', in the West this June. Yay. He also added a fascinating chat with Jam Sessions designer Seth Delackner - turns out he's a Westerner working at Tokyo game developer Plato and has plenty of intriguing things to say.

- A couple of other fragmented things of note from GDC. Firstly, game designer David Sirlin has some really thoughtful write-ups of Wed/Thu/Fri's events (from his perspective) on his weblog. Secondly, Dan Tabar of Data Realms has a whole bunch of GDC photos up, with quite a bit of sightseeing, but notable because it has the first pics I've seen of Virt playing out at the IGF party. Rawk.

- Finally, Gillen points out the awesome cover to a Swedish game magazine, commenting: "Oskar Skog drops me a mail, showing the cover art for the second issue of +N, which he’s the editor of... I share, and am slightly nostalgic for the days when magazines all actually commissioned unique works of art for their covers. This one’s the handywork of one Kamekichi." I approve.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Doesn't look like there's been an official announcement about this yet, but the latest March 2007 issue of Game Informer magazine reveals that Agetec is bringing classic PS2 collabo-platformer The Adventures of Cookie & Cream to the Nintendo DS, in a version simply called 'Cookie & Cream'.

GI explains of the DS conversion and update: "On one screen you'll move and platform your way through eight worlds and many stages, while the touch screen is used simultaneously to clear obstacles, solve puzzles, and defeat the bosses that get in your way." And co-op will still be possible via Wi-Fi, with 9 extra mini-games bundled into the whole dealio. (The image in this news story is from the PS2 version, but there are a couple of DS screenshots in the mag.)

[It's also notable and even surprising how many other major announcements got tied to this month's Game Informer street date - the cover is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which just got announced, of course, and it looks like the folks at Gamecock also timed their announcement to the Game Informer publishing schedule. One forgets how influential paper-magazines can be sometimes - esp. those with 2 million+ circulations!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The handy blog of New York-based import game retailer NCSX has added info on Plato's Hiite Utaeru DS Guitar M-06 for DS, which is, semi-unbelievably, "the strangest axe ever in the annals of guitar technology."

It's explained: "With 16 chords to use at any time from a library of 120, users may strum out a song relatively easily if you're familiar with basic guitar playing. We were able to play the Main Riff I for "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman and "Torn" from Natalie Imbruglia this morning by following guitar tabs found on the web. In addition to its function as a guitar, the software also includes a library of 20 songs and a listening-then-repeating exercise."

The NCSX game notes have lots more detail, explaining: "On the touch screen, a thick crop of vertical lines represent the guitar string. It's pasted against a black background so that the focus is the line itself. To play, strum the line with your touch pen or finger and you'll hear a twang. Change chords with the D-pad by moving it in the direction of the chords shown on the top screen and the tone of the twang changes every time you move the D-pad to another chord." This is wild.

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

So, this is partly an observation, and partly a call for ideas and suggestions. I rented Touch Detective for the Nintendo DS the other day, which is a decent, but very very Japanese adventure game where you randomly run around solving crimes and trying to combine/use objects in an illogical fashion.

The game itself is, you know, OK - but what I was excited about was the fact that a picture of the main character (Mackenzie) fills the top screen, alongside location info, and her internal monologue is actually timed to what's going on in the game. For example, in this screenshot, you can see another character talking, but if you want to glance up to the top screen, you can see what Mackenzie is thinking at that exact time.

This mechanic (which, for this game, is just icing) wouldn't work so well without the dual screens. There are actually some great gameplay possibilities spinning off ideas like this. I could imagine it being integrated into a detective game where you could interrogate people, turn on your special mind-reading powers, and see their thoughts pop up at the top of the screen. You could then speak to them and try to divine their true motives. But you could only use mind-reading for particular periods of time so you'd have to pick when to turn it on, etc.

So my GameSetQ is - what has been the best use of the DS' non-interactive top screen you've seen in a game so far (here's a list of DS games to help you out.) Have you guys got an idea for using it in an even more clever way that hasn't been done yet? Don't worry about spilling the beans, no game developers read GSW or, uhh, anything.

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Over at knowledgable import store NCSX, they have a write-up of a pretty funny Japanese DS title - the newly released Minna No Curling, which takes the ice-based precision sport kicking and screaming onto Nintendo's handheld.

NCSX handily explains: "The "sport" of Curling may be compared to bowling but instead of a ball and nine pins, the thrower shoves a flat-bottomed stone across a field of ice towards the vicinity of a target. Once thrown, teammates vigorously brush the path in front of the stone to guide it into the house. The intention is to affect the movement and spin of the stone by polishing the ice so that the stone glides into the intended area. Virtual curling follows the basic procedures of real curling and NDS gamers get to control everything from the launch of the stone to the brushing of the ice."

Oh, and apparently: "The Japan Curling Association gave their stamp of approval to the game." Seems like the Japanese sometimes make games on _very_ niche sports (see: a marathon running game for the PS2 - though it's possible that the latter is a bit more popular in Japan, just as track and field sports seem significantly more popular in the UK than in the United States.)

[And as an aside - NCSX have a plethora of pictures for the Dreamcast watch, which is already out of stock at the shop, and for which it's explained: "A silver-colored DC console shell houses the timepiece with a lid that flips upwards by pressing the "eject" button on the lower left side of the console." Pure decadence!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at Serious Games Source, which is the sister site to GameSetWatch that deals with games for training, education, and other cultural shenanigans, Gonzalo Frasca has posted a piece discussing the questionable gameplay themes in Super Princess Peach for the Nintendo DS.

The piece does a good job of explaining how the game's arguably sexist concepts were toned down for the West (as previously discussed on GSW), but my favorite bit is an afterword: "On an incidental note, I would like to mention that a few months after Super Princess Peach was released, Nintendo launched another Mario platform game for the Nintendo DS: New Super Mario Bros. This game featured new superpowers for Mario, too. Rather than using his emotions, Mario was able to shift sizes, from tiny to enormous."

Frasca notes: "I never thought about this until I wrote this article but Nintendo’s choice of female and male superpowers for both games in nothing short of hilarious. One game defines women as emotionally unstable while the other one presents boys as being obsessed with their size. Why is Mario so worried about how big he can be? Who is he trying to impress? Has Luigi been recently dating somebody?" This line of questioning could go far!

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

NCS continues to provide the snappiest write-ups for import video game goods around - and the latest is the new Winning Eleven-themed Nintendo DS Lite, and it's... odd.

As they note: "Someone used the top of a jet black Nintendo DS Lite as a soccer play scribble pad and lucky consumers get to pay a dear price for the gold-inked chicken scratches, arrows, circles, and the occasional text such as "Goal!" and "Jockeying." NCS' collective opinion is that the unit looks a frightful mess but there might be an audience for such a stylized rendition of the DS Lite. "

Of course: "The Winning Eleven DS Lite Bundle includes a copy of the Winning Eleven DS game and the special Nintendo DS Lite unit" - so I guess you get a fun game of soccer with your odd hardware purchase. Anyone got any nominations for an odder/plan weirder limited-edition hardware bundle decoration?

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Of course, this is way too BREAKING not to post - Wired.com's Game|Life has got the complete Elite Beat Agents DS tracklisting up, and it's pretty darn interesting!

Keiichi Yano told Game|Life of the announcement: "The concept for song selection was this - the roaring songs you would want to hear if you went to a college frat party... I used to play in bands like that, and when the whole crowd is jumping up and down to your tunes...this is the essence of our selections."

I'm not sure I was expecting them to go that way, and there are certainly some cheesy tracks on here - but I like it! Here's the full skinny:

1. Walkie Talkie Man - Steriogram
2. ABC - Jackson Five
3. Sk8er Boi - Avril Lavigne
4. I Was Born to Love You - Queen
5. Rock This Town - Stray Cats
6. Highway Star - Deep Purple
7. Y.M.C.A. - Village People
8. September - Earth, Wind and Fire
9. Canned Heat - Jamiroquai
10. Material Girl - Madonna
11. La La - Ashlee Simpson
12. You're the Inspiration - Chicago
13. Survivor - Destiny's Child
14. Without a Fight - Hoobastank
15. Believe - Cher
16. Let's Dance - David Bowie
17. Jumpin Jack Flash - Rolling Stones
18. Makes No Difference - Sum 41
19. The Anthem - Good Charlotte

Also noted: "Where the hell is "Livin' La Vida Loca"? A fair question. Near as I can figure, the song was dropped from the game." When I spoke to Yano at TGS, he confirmed that the track wasn't in the game any more - maybe Ricky Martin got greedy? We shall never know!

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Ta to Jiji and GoNintendo for pointing out info on a new Atlus dungeon hack for the DS debuting in the States early next year, so we figured we'd pass on.

It's explained: "DerrickDS was doing some hunting when he came across a title called Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja. The title was due to be released from Atlus. Having never heard of the title, he got in touch with Atlus, who gave him this response."

Which was: “Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja, I know not much about. It’s a random-dungeon-crawling RPG with a wacky/silly sense of humor. Tons and tons of items and combat, in the vein of the Mysterious Dungeon series. Another 1Q ‘07 shipper. Right now, we don’t have a detailed description just yet, but I will know more in the next month.” There's some earlier info on the Success-developed version on GoNintendo.

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It's worth checking out the Game|Life weblog, more than usual, even, since Chris Kohler has been doing some neat photo updates for Wired News from Tokyo.

But I particularly liked his photos from the Vanpool offices, the creators of the ultra-bizarre Zelda spin-off Tingle RPG for DS - he noted: "But I had to ask the designers: was their game really intended, as I suspected, as a parody of Scientology?"

So: "As it turns out: no, but sort of. While they didn't know what Scientology was, they said they were inspired to create the scam-a-riffic religion of Rupee Land by voodoo bullshit like fake charm pendants and healing bracelets and all that." But man, bizarre real-life Tingle-style press-on nails, too? Odd odd odd.

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Since TGS is kicking off tomorrow, GSW posts may be slowing down a bit more, but here's my latest for Gamasutra - an interview with Ouendan and Gitaroo Man co-creator Keiichi Yano, discussing how independent developers thrive in the Japanese market.

Here's some neat bits: "How about hiring to add to the team at Inis? Yano commented baldly: "Hiring is really a pain in the butt in Japan", noting that for a company like Inis, "it's very hard to get [the right] caliber of person", despite the specialized game schools operating in Japan. However, Inis is starting to attract seasoned developers to bolster its existing staff - the Inis co-founder explains: "We have the lead programmer of Final Fantasy XI on our team right now", an impressive addition to the company."

And more: "So, what's in Inis' future? The company has shown elements from an Xbox 360 technical demo on its website, and Yano confirmed that they are moving ahead, and we will "eventually" see some kind of Xbox 360 game from his company - no publisher or game details yet, though. As for other possible projects, Yano commented enthusiastically: "I want to do a Wii game, like everybody else" - but it doesn't appear that any such title is in active development." Please to enjoy!

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Functional Autonomy blog has an interesting post analyzing DS title Another Code, aka [EDIT: Uh, not Lost in Blue, duh!] Trace Memory, and comparing it to traditional adventure games.

The overall take, though? "Basic verdict: Does many tricks of old media while not playing to any of the strengths of games." Looks like this is usability-related, but some fine points are made: "# As the player, I often feel like I’m solely there to double tap in appropriate places to advance the decidedly linear action."

What's more: "# Dialogue is long winded, and interrupts the game without warning. Scripts initiate it far more often than the player, and it’s also so linear that the efforts at making it interactive are laughable... # It often won’t let you pick up items that will obviously be needed, until dialogue pertaining to the relevant puzzle has been activated and sat through." Too harsh? Some claim this is a 'hidden gem'.

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Talking of ex-Gamasutra news editor and current Atlus localization guy Mr. N. Maragos, he's popped up at Insert Credit reviewing the manual to Cooking Mama DS in a terribly arch style.

Firstly, he loves up the credits: "Not only is it fascinating to me to see how other outfits divide up the labor, but any list of names past a certain length will yield some real winners. My favorites come from Majesco's QA division: Onix Alicea deserves (his? her?) own J-RPG, possibly by Tri-Ace, while Hunter S. Gollum evokes Tolkien gone Gonzo."

And the terrible conclusion? "Points off for the following: the paper's funky smell when you first open it up, writing "salisbury steak" in lower-case (Salisbury is a proper noun, guys!), slipping in a cryptic mention of apparent wireless multiplayer without ever really explaining how that works, and calling the freestyle cooking mode "Use Skill". (That last is an issue with the game, not the manual per se, but it's still irksome.)" Don't let it happen again!

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Wait, two Animal Crossing posts in a row? Anyone would think Tom Nook had been bribing us with oranges. Anyhow, Raina Lee (of 1UP-Zine fame) has a column on VH1 Game Break which talks about the auction market for Animal Crossing in-game items.

Lee explains how there's an in-game store in the DS version of the title, and then asks: "What about the items your store doesn’t have? What if you just can’t find the Robo dresser for the rest of your Robo décor? In real life, if you really want a something, you visit an auction site. So there’s Nookbay dot com, where you buy and sell items for bells. The rarer the item, the more the bells."

She then notes: "Just like I do on Bay, I browse the most expensive items first. A Metroid -- 2 million bells... A Carte Blanche to someone’s inventory -- 500,000 bells... A Royal Crown -- 9 million bells... A Complete Mario Set – 10 million bells.. And a Red Glitched Tulip... going for a whopping 30 million bells." I thought you couldn't move the tulips after they were placed? There had better not be Nookbay scammers around!

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The ever-furious Tony Walsh has posted on Clickable Culture about Nintendo's in-game method of promoting Star Fox DS within the v.popular Animal Crossing: Wild World.

Though subsequently corrected that the messages from Nintendo are optional, he notes: " Players of the online-enabled town-building game Animal Crossing: Wild World received a... marketing message recently from Nintendo, the game's maker. The message was sent through the game's email system, normally used to deliver inter-player mail as well as free virtual gifts from Nintendo such as home decor and furniture. According to Animal Crossing Ahead, the message refers to the recently released Nintendo game Star Fox Command: "Dear [name], Star Fox Command stats are live! We were going to give you Slippy, but take this instead! Attached to the letter is an Arwing!"

Commenter Dezro notes: "This is a pretty benign thing IMO. No illusion-shattering graphics, nothing you can't turn off... You can even throw out the letter without opening it, and still keep the rare item they send (which is already available in the game - Nintendo didn't just have it there for the express purpose of promotion)." But even more tragically, does this break the fourth wall? Oh my.

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Over at Game Informer Online, they have some excellent hands-on impressions of Cooking Mama DS, which are very informative on why we should care, somewhat, about the Majesco-published DS cooking import.

It's explained: "Cooking Mama begins with absolutely no setup whatsoever. In fact, there isn’t really a story to be found in the game at all. You just select a recipe and start cooking. Players will start out with only a few dishes to choose from and then unlock new ones as they complete meals. All in all, the game has 76 different meals to make with a stunning variety of cuisines. Create tasty chow like fried chicken, rice dishes, pizza, sandwiches, spaghetti, dumplings, curry, kebabs, udon noodles, soup, shrimp, and even ramen."

However, it's also noted: "As far as complaints go, I really wish Cooking Mama had some sort of wacky story to go along with it. Who the hell is Mama and why am I making all of this food? We’ll never know, apparently. Trauma Center could have been just a bunch of surgery mini-games, but because the creators tied in some doctor drama, the game has a fair share of character that you can latch onto. What if you worked at a restaurant and a busload of kids came in and you had to make 15 cheeseburgers in two minutes? It could be cool." Close... but no celery?

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Little more than a post of randomness, let's try to shoehorn two bits of greatness into one cogent set of paragraphs here. Firstly, my favorite game review line of the year so far, from the October 2006 issue of Computer Games Magazine.

It's actually written by Kelly Wand, who is reviewing CSI: 3 Dimensions Of Murder by Telltale, and who explains helpfully: "The game offers an appealing variety of scenarios. One set in the videogame industry involves a game designer who lives in his car and puts scorpions in the beds of his colleagues, which is obviously inspred by Sid Meier." Bravo, Sir.

Secondly, Jeremy Parish has added a fun blog post in which he notes: "So it appears that Will Wright, or at least a poorly-drawn caricature of him, will be working in an advisory role for players in Sim City 3000 for DS. Or as Kohler puts it, he'll be playing the part of Dr. Kawashima." So that's two evil (or just evil-looking) digitized game developers in one day, yikes!

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It appears to be Labor Day in North America, and while we're luxuriating and not, uhh, laboring, we were highly amused by eToychest's latest ' Schwag Attack!' column, named 'Foxes On A Plane'.

As eToy-er and Gamasutra news guy Jason Dobson notes: "While I put the finishing touches on our late (but oh so delicious) Star Fox Command review, I thought I'd share some of the goodies Nintendo was kind enough to send along with the game. I know I've said this before, but Nintendo PR is creative, and nowhere is this more evident than in their video game schwag. Be it chocolate or hamster food, we've seen all manner of goods arrive at our office stamped with the Nintendo seal of approval."

He continues: "However, Star Fox Command's arrival marked the first time we have ever been sent a barf bag. Yes, in celebration of the game's release, Nintendo sent over an appropriately labeled Star Fox air sickness bag, and accompanying Star Fox Command bags of dry roasted nuts. I suppose if playing on the Nintendo DS ever gets too nauseating, I now have the tools for the job."

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at Game|Life, Chris Kohler has presented impressions of Tingle's Rupee Land, the insane new DS title from Nintendo starring the very scary Zelda incidental character

The Wikipedia page on the character is hilarious: "Tingle is a short, paunchy 35-year-old man who is obsessed with "forest fairies" and dresses up in a green costume which slightly resembles that of the main character, Link" - but, as Kohler notes, in the game it's just as crazed: "Old Man Rupee tells you how to achieve your dream of going to Rupee Land, a land of plenty where you don't have to work, can eat all the food you want, and will be surrounded by beautiful women."

Kohler notes entirely sensibly: "I'm a little surprised that Tingle, who prances around in green tights and pointy green hat, wants to be surrounded by beautiful women, but I think that scene is honestly supposed to be ironic", and concludes: "It's a fun game thus far. It's not exactly packed with jokes -- the comedy just comes from the fact that it's all just so weird." A North American release is presumably pretty damn unlikely, though you never know.

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Over at 1UP, J.Parish has posted an extremely readable preview of Squenix's Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, which includes an interview with the game's director Yoshiki Watabe.

Of the action-adventure almost Zelda-like DS game's insane name, Watabe explains: "One of the biggest things we were worried about was the image of a slime. In Japan, [the smiling Dragon Quest monster] is what people think of when they hear 'slime,' but in the West if you'd never played Dragon Quest you'd think slime was just a blob."

He continues: "We wanted to give the idea that he's more solid than just a pool of bubbles and that he can actually snap around like a slingshot. That's why we gave him the name Rocket. The juxtaposition of 'rocket' and 'slime' makes you think, 'Well, why did they call it that?' and when you see the game you realize right away that he shoots around like a rocket."" Don't get it, but I love the justification.

And really, when the plot for the game is like this, who cares? "Rocket's mission is to rescue 100 of his slime friends from the Plob, a mafia-like mob of platypuses whose rank is determined by the number of tails they wear. The lowest ranks wear a single tail, while the Plobfather himself wears seven." I'm actually sold - there's relatively few good DS games in this genre (the multi-tail platypus boss one, of course!), for some weird reason.

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Square's much-awaited Final Fantasy III remake for Nintendo DS was released in Japan this week, and NCSX has impressions of the game alongside some startling prices for the DS hardware FFIII bundle.

The site reveals: "Speculative vendors got gouge-happy again this week and shot for the stars by boosting the price of the FFIII DS bundle to ¥41,921 or US$362.22. Against our advisement, customers still confirmed their preorders and we are shipping those orders today. Everyone who confirmed as of 5:55PM EST yesterday will ship this afternoon." Yep, so almost $400, and a bunch of people still paid up - youch.

It's further noted: "We are aware of sizable supplies of the FFIII DS Lite Bundle being hoarded by traders. If sellers can't get their asking price within the next week or two, lofty valuations will get dumped as the speculative froth dies down. We've seen it many times before and we'll see it again in the future." Oh, and IGN has impressions of the game, too, for the interested - looks like it could be a big DS hit in the West, too.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jetlagged on my return from China and trying to get back into the swing of things (look for a mini-announcement on GameSetWatch posting frequency soon!), but in the meantime, here's a gem courtesy of Jeremy 'Toastyfrog' Parish - an awesome localization tidbit from the upcoming Grasshopper Manufacture-developed Contact for Nintendo DS.

Yes, the game says: "Try to hit his weakpoint for massive damage", and it's all totally Genji 2 E3 demo, and this has all the makings of a tragically inbred joke that everyone who gets will _adore_. Of course, we're a fan of inbreeding (duhh!), so we like it a lot.

Also, teh Parish adds to the end of his post: "Given the general sense of "Wow I've never heard of this but suddenly I am interested!" that seems to be accompanying links to this image, may I recommend you learn all about the game with the world's greatest Contact preview?" And it is!

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at Siliconera, they've got an interview with Atlus' Tomm Hulett about DS title Contact, as created by Suda51's company Grasshopper Manufacture, and previously mentioned on GSW.

Hulett hasn't actually played the game (which is created by Akira Ueda, currently working on a sequel), in that much detail yet, has just translated it, heh, but has some notable words on why the U.S. might dig the title more than Japan: "I’m not sure why it didn’t do well in Japan, though I do suspect its release just before the highly anticipated Mother 3 had something to do with it. However, Contact’s US release will be the only wackiness infusion American Earthbound fans get for a while, so we can at least corner that demographic."

He adds: "I also think most of the DS users in this country are still gamers (as opposed to Japan, where a large majority are non-gamers), so there should be more people who will appreciate the humor featured in Contact. Which isn’t to say non-gamers won’t enjoy Contact; they totally would. They should go preorder it RIGHT NOW." So, covering all bases, then!

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We previously ran a note about Electroplankton creator Toshio Iwai appearing at the Manchester-based Futuresonic festival, and UK site PixelSumo has now posted some neat, but shakycam video of the event.

It's explained (unfortunately, there's not video of the entire event!): "Toshio began talking about his childhood and obvious early inspiration. First he showed books that were bought for him as a young child, one of insects and one about the science of light, sound and heat. At the age of 9 or 10, his mother said he would get no more toys. Instead she gave him materials (paper craft etc) and he started using his imagination to make his own toys and games."

Moving on from there: "He liked to combine old media with new technologies. His zoetropes were fantastic, the 3D model collaboration with a film maker made my jaw drop. A series of these were created, more detail soon. On to the musical applications, he discussed how for his moving films he could never compose music through lack of understanding traditional score. A mechanical toy music box allowed him to punch holes in the paper, feed it through to create a tune, making a very visual way of creating sound." Makes total sense, given what he creates now! [Via Edge-Online.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Poking around the awesome Music Thing blog and its entry on bizarre musical instruments at the Futuresonic festival in Manchester, we discovered something wonderful - Toshio Iwai has an official Tenori-On weblog in English, and he also talks about Electroplankton on it.

We've previously covered Tenori-On, which is Iwai's insane-looking new Yamaha co-produced touch-based musical instrument, which shares a lot of ideas with his DS title Electroplankton (and his previous cult PC title Sim Tunes!), but there's lots more info on the blog, as well as a post on Electroplankton's European debut.

In it, Iwai comments: "Electroplankton was released in Europe today, July 7th. I am very happy, so I made a drawing which Electroplanktons
were swimming to Europe through the Milky Way." Darn, wish there was a wallpaper-sized version of it.

He also reveals: "European version of Electroplankton recognize the language setting of Nintendo DS, so the language of the menu and etc. is changed. And the voices of Volvoice in the Audience Mode are also changed. I asked Nintendo of Europe to record children's voice of each language. (Original Volvoice's voice is my daughtar's voice ;-)" Cute!

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ever had a pet eat one of your favorite gaming handhelds? Jacob Kaplan-Moss has, and he's blogged about his puppy's attempt to consume his DS Lite on his weblog.

Jacob notes: "So I came home to find this: Bad Dog! [A moment of silence for my so-recently-new toy...] He mangled the thing pretty good, but amazingly it still turns on, albeit with a busted touch-screen."

However, Nintendo's customer service provides a happy(ish) ending to this story! Amazingly, when he called, Nintendo said: "So it looks like the best I can do is to charge you $50 to repair it, how does that sound?" Jacob grins of this development: "Major props to Nintendo's customer service. I don't know many companies that would replace a unit that's been eaten by a dog for around 1/3 of the sticker price. That rocks."

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At Water Cooler Games, Ian Bogost has posted a fun entry on how Nintendogs was pre-empted by PF Magic's PC 'dog sim' Dogz, which was available around 10 years back - but his write-up includes a certain amount of sour puppy chow.

[We've previously discussed the very recent GBA version of Dogz from Ubisoft, which is the game in name only, since it's actually a Japanese game by MTO given the name of the original virtual pet, but did actually pre-empt the Nintendo title as well in original form, oddly enough.]

However, I do disagree with Bogost more than a little in his comments: "Given [Dogz co-creator] Andrew [Stern]'s role in an arguably more sophisticated and certainly much earlier dog simulation, I must admit that I grimace a bit amidst the effusive praise heaped upon Nintendogs". Why? It's not like people haven't considered pet simulators before, and Nintendogs is a well-done one.

Also, it's claimed huffingly: "It's certainly a serious, legitimate title, and I don't mean to discount that fact. But Nintendogs is also intended to backdoor new players into a Nintendo DS. "I don't play games," a target buyer might think, "but I do like puppies."" Well, to that, I retort - isn't Nintendogs is just a game that Nintendo thought would appeal to a wide audience, who would enjoy playing it - which they do? Overanalyzing a bit much, here? You've certainly backdoored me into linking your article, though, Monsieur Bogost!

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The cunning like a fox Kyle Orland has posted a fun piece over at VGMWatch on how the video game press handled the recent news that President Bush had been given a DS and a copy of Brain Training by Nintendo for his 60th birthday.

Orland notes: "This story is more than a PR case study — it’s also a rare window into the political inclinations of some members of the video game press... While Nintendo was careful not to state anything explicitly in its letter, the implication of giving a brain training game to a president widely stereotyped as a dim bulb is not lost on anyone. Which outlets took the bait and made the obvious joke, and which ones played it straight?"

Results were predictable: "Leading off the snarkfest, unsurprisingly, is Spong which had by far the most ruthless attacks on the prez. Not only does the British site lead off by calling Bush a “warmongering lunatic and global terrorist overlord,” but it goes on to suggest that Bush’s aging should make people happy as they “wait for the inevitable.” Ouch!"

[Oh, and we ran into this gem of a headline from today's Spong, which shows the 'genius' that is the tabloidiest game site on the Internet, whatever GamesRadar is trying for - and for those too scared to click through, it reads: 'Bono Looks Sanctimonious Cock as Game Investment Row Flares'.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Actually, we think this has been out for a little bit, but thanks to The2Bears, we just spotted it - a multi-game homebrew DS title called 'No Place To Hide', which has even been updated to use local WiFi despite being entirely fan-coded - impressive!

The official 'About Page', which subtitles the game '10 mini-games for scorers', explains somewhat non-English-ly of the title: "Avoid all objects/characters to do the best time!
In the 5th game, you will touch the "ship" for avoid asteroids! In the 6th game, you will move jesus for avoid arrows.In the last level, you should use keys to move the boat and avoid helicopters :p"

Wait, Jesus _and_ helicopters in the same game? We're sold! And as The2Bears notes, the game "...is a great little package of 10 mini games for the Nintendo DS. It even has a shmup-like dodging game. With wifi working as well it shows the continuing improvement of the DS Homebrew scene."

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to a report by Chinese Nintendo DS fan site YYJoy, the first bootlegged Nintendo DS games have made their way into the black market. And if eBay's history with the Game Boy Advance is an indicator, these things are going to be duping potentially honest gamers very soon.

Unfortunately, eBay has no real safeguards in place for bootlegged games, so the only protection you have is to educate yourself on the tell-tale signs of counterfeit crap. As a public service announcement, and thanks to photos provided by YYJoy, we're here to help!

First, let's take a look at the front of one of these counterfeits. Now, despite what you may think, Nintendo's manufacturing partners do not use Epson inkjet printers set on "medium" quality to produce DS labels, and they don't apply the labels by hand. So if you see a DS cartridge label that looks like this at your local Gamestop, immediately grab the geek behind the counter by his shirt collar and slam his face into the counter. This will increase his tension meter. If this goes up far enough, you can extort him for money in the name of Don Vito Corleone.

Perhaps the finer points of image reproduction elude you, something typically caused by damage to either the eyes or the brain. In that case, another sure sign of a counterfeit DS game is the numbered code on the bottom of the label. SZGD-20011-A888 is not a Nintendo DS product number. Nintendo DS numbers begin with NTR (a leftover from when the DS was code-named 'Nitro') and end with a region specific acronym, either USA, JAP or EUR. If you come across a Nintendo DS cartridge with a code number like the one pictured, sneak behind the counter and press the O button gently to use CQC and grab the store clerk from behind. Don't press too hard, or you will slice his throat and make a mess.

Not enough? Let's look at the back:

On the left is a dirty horrible counterfeit videogame that may fund The Terrorists(tm), and on the right is a red-blooded apple pie lovin' American Nintendo DS game. Most noticeable is that the metallic pins on the fake are black. This is because counterfeiters use black magic, and have black hearts. Also take note that the Nintendo copyright text, though reproduced exactly, is perfectly centered vertically. In a true Nintendo DS game, the text is slightly above center. If you see a Nintendo DS game in a store with perfectly centered copyright text, open the command prompt and type /report. This will automatically report your find to Nintendo's anti-piracy ninjas, who will take care of the rest.

In addition to being dirty and awful and taking money away from the industry we love, counterfeit video games have a nasty habit of being defective. Remember, these things are cheaply manufactured and meant to be sold quickly, so if your battery decides to die on the day before you take your Nintendog to the state finals, well, it's your fault for buying a counterfeit. We don't seriously expect to see these things popping up at brick and mortar stores any time soon, but as my genuine "NINTONDO" version of Super Mario 2 will attest to, it could happen, and it probably will.

Posted by Frank Cifaldi at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

We like Jiji's Namako Team blog (so much, in fact, that he's starting a regular column at GSW on retro compilations soon!), and right now on it, he's released his regular OCD monthly update on D3 Publisher's Japanese weird-ass games.

Particularly interesting: "The only non-PS2 game in this update, the DS version of The Kanshikikan (or The Investigator) has been released to a warm reception. Developed by D3 stalwarts Tomcat System, the original game involves CSI-style forensic investigation in an adventure-game framework and was published as part of the Simple 2000 series, and this new version has added puzzles that use the stylus to good effect. This looks like a prime candidate for US release, either by D3 America themselves or somebody like Atlus, so let's hope somebody takes a chance on it. ITmedia and GAME Watch have previews."

But also of note: "The Earth Defense Force Tactics (out July 27) has been getting lots of attention lately. Rakuten posted screenshots and the cover art, the official site is up and ITmedia posted a preview. The strategy maps use an overhead 2D view, and the game resembles other hex-based military strategy games like Nectaris and Daisenryaku quite a bit." Amazing round-up, as per usual.

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, as Joystiq points out, all kinds of game journalists got their DS Lite consoles from Nintendo today, complete with a 'booby-trapped' box that plays a cute little audio fanfare when opened - see the attached movie on the page. [And thanks for the cute pic caption!]

Well, over at the tragic world that is Chris Kohler's Game|Life at Wired News, he also got a package from Nintendo, but, well - just play the movie and see what happened with his. Poor guy.

[We'd like to take this opportunity to note that the extended pause for the fanfare to stop, followed by 'God-DAMMIT', is one of the funniest things we've heard this week. Though we do know teh Kohler, and he's not generally very sweary, so maybe that's why we're amused. Also, Nintendo and swearing - just say no!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Woops, we forgot to remind people to enter the Death Jr. competition, so we've extended the deadline til Monday June 5th at noon PST, in case we have any other last-minute entries!

Here's a reminder - thanks to our friends at Backbone Entertainment, part of super-duper developer Foundation9, we have a new GameSetWatch competition giveaway, and it's rather awesome.

To help promote the new Death Jr. titles being released later this year (and Backbone's largesse in general), the lucky winner gets the pictured loot (click on the pic to enlarge!) - a Death Jr. T-shirt, a mini 'C-4 Hamster' action figure (!), and best of all, a special metal Death Jr. Case Core Coffincase.

This is a smaller version of the cases generally used by exceptionally gothy musicians as instrument-holders, with a Death Jr. plaque on the front, a beautiful red velour interior, and a copy of Death Jr. for PSP hiding inside it - along with a couple of green Death Jr. lollipops, clearly the highlight of the whole package.

So, in order to win, you need to answer the following question:

"When Death Jr. and friends appeared on the June/July 2005 issue of GSW sister publication Game Developer magazine, DJ was brandishing a scythe and pointing to a graph. What 'hilarious' joke descriptors are on the two axes of the graph?"

Please send your answers to editors@gamesetwatch.com - deadline, as mentioned, Monday June 5th, noon PST. There will be only one winner randomly picked from the correct answers, the judges' decision is final, and the C-4 Hamster will not blow up in the mail, according to its packaging. Happy trails!

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our love for DS title Ouendan, now coming to the U.S. as Elite Beat Agents, knows (relatively) no boundaries, and thus, we were delighted to see that Cracked Rabbit Gaming has set up a website linking to all the YouTube music videos for the Ouendan songs, as performed by their original J-Pop artists.

As the author notes something we didn't actually realize: "Like many music games, the recordings in the game are sound-alikes [with one exception]).", before going on to give us a brief lesson about a few of the bands featured prominently in the game.

In particular, he notes of Morning Musume's Koi no Dance Site video: "Morning Musume is an ever changing girl j-pop band. The members change often (similar to Menudo). The current members are not the same ones seen in this video from when the song was released. If you watch the Colbert Report you may have seen a clip of some girls with meat headbands screaming at a lizard (they show it a lot)…that was them!" Woo! [Via NeoGAF.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Via IF site Grand Text Auto, there's an excellent report on a 'Drama Princess' symposium on story and games held in Brussels recently, as part of a new project by the folks behind the very odd The Endless Forest screensaver/game environment.

It's explained: "On the first day, guests were invited to play certain commercial videogames. Those games were Ico, Black & White, The Sims 2 and Animal Crossing. Facade, Catz and Soul Calibur II were available as well. And on the second day we discussed the autonomous characters in these games in a round-table format that was open to the public."

Some fascinating stuff came up, including: "During the discussion we came to a perhaps odd consensus that sophistication of “AI” seems to be reversely related to the believability of the characters. The primitive Animal Crossing creatures were far easier to accept than the complex Sims. Some people even had trouble calling The Sims autonomous because they do not seem to try to accomplish their goals but needed the player’s help with that. Also, their personalities were not considered very diverse as they all responded in the same way to the same stimuli." There's much, much more if you click through.

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Publisher Majesco really hasn't had much to crow about recently, what with a financial meltdown precipitated by the financial flops of Psychonauts and Advent Rising - certainly nothing to justify having the company's NASDAQ symbol be 'COOL', haw.

But, on the way back to the budget bargain basement, the firm has struck a quirky chord, judging by its press release on DS game Cookin Mama's reception at E3: "Cooking Mama was awarded several honors including: "Most Innovative DS Design of E3 2006" from leading video game website IGN; and GameDaily's "Nod Award," which called Cooking Mama "a fun DS game that uses the stylus to near perfection."

The title, which was originally published by Taito in Japan, is ripe for an Iron Chef license, if you ask us: "Playing as a female chef, you have to prepare the food (slicing the vegetables, slicing the meat), then cook it on the stove. With touchscreen play, you can do things such as shake the skillet for an omelet and dip tempura in the oil." But those Alton Brown licensing fees are probably steep, so we'll settle for a decent translation, eh, Majesco?

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

According to our sister site, Gamasutra, Nintendo has decided to brand and in some cases re-brand more "accessible" DS games with its new "Touch Generations" label.

The company explains that the brand "will include titles that anyone can pick up and play, even with little or no experience with video games", and that the move "represents one of the many ways that Nintendo is making it easy for new demographics of people to be introduced to video games." In addition to its newer titles such as the Brain Training series, the brand will also be applied to long-time favorites Nintendogs, Tetris DS, and True Swing Tennis.

While I can understand the drive to let consumers know which games are more family-friendly, I feel this move may end up muddling a market already saturated with ESRB ratings and other age-specific warnings. So this is a Touch Generations title, does that mean an 80 year old can play alongside her grandkids? Wouldn't the ESRB "E for Everyone" label pretty much cover this?

The idea has merit, but all we have from Nintendo so far are buzzwords about demographics and "pick up and play." Only time will tell if the Touch Generations branding takes off in the US.

Posted by chasem at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Andy Waxy.org Baio, who created now Yahoo!-owned events site Upcoming.org and is quite the gamegeek (and a GSW chum!), made the trek down to E3 earlier this month, and has posted his impressions of his 'E3 Underdogs 2006' at his personal site.

He does note, interestingly, that in finding the downtrodden: "This year was particularly hard. Partly because I spent most of the day waiting in line to see the Nintendo Wii, but also partly because the entire gaming industry is getting so weird."

He continues: "In catering to the casual gamer and trying to differentiate from the competition, every platform and publisher is spending serious money turning former underdogs into big-name titles... I was surprised to see games like Loco Roco and Viva Piñata with huge marketing efforts by Sony and Microsoft. (What hath Katamari wrought?)"

But some of the Baio-approved 'under rug swept' titles include our favorite Elite Beat Agents, Guitar Hero II, which Baio is parading around at work "(I won't be happy until I get Jerry Yang and David Filo to battle it out on "Bark at the Moon.")", and one title not really mentioned by GSW thus far, Elebits for Wii ("Part hide n' seek shooting game and part physics simulation, Elebits uses the Wii controller as a gravity gun to ransack ordinary household settings to find and capture cute little characters.") Neeto!

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In Japan, it's time for Ertain's releasing Relax your Heart with Adult Color-In Painting! No, it's not a stress-relieving porno coloring book that uses the DS stylus in unique, adult ways - it's something of a paint program and game slapped around famous art pieces. In much the same way that Nintendo used the popular books by Ryuta Kawashima for Brain Training, Ertain hopes to strike lightning by releasing an adaptation of the extremely popular series of Adult Coloring Books.

These books have one of the most "fun" claims ever: they are classical art outline books that say they stimulate the frontal lobe when you choose the order and color of your paint, and the temporal lobe when you remember where you saw the painting before! (This just in: I'm going to release a series of books called Adult Male Urination Training which teaches you how to work your frontal lobe by aiming correctly and your temporal lobe by remembering the last time it burned so much. It'll make millions!)

In any case, Ertain's game seems a lot cooler than the books. Basically, a classical painting is displayed in the top screen, and the player (with lines for guidance) can render it in any manner they choose on the bottom screen. For instance, when you use the color pencil tools to spruce up a work, and erase something with the erase tool, little eraser shavings will appear on the screen, which you can blow off with the DS microphone.

The watercolor and oil painting tools will allow you to mix colors with the stylus for that hand-painted look. You can choose among different paper types, as well to give the picture different textures. By playing mini-games, you can expand your painting subject matter and pictures. Once you're done, you can have your painting analyzed and criticized by different virtual people, from the perspective of beginner painters all the way to first-class pros. While you paint, you can listen to the soothing sounds of Agematsu Mika, a professional South American harp player. The game releases on July 27th for Nintendo DS.

Ertain is one of my favorite small Japanese developers. I can only hope this will hit a home run for them in the same unexpected way Brain Training did, though I doubt it. It would be nice if the company hit the big time, because their stuff, ranging from an actually competent strategy game for the GBA, a gladiator training game and a stand-up comic game, is beyond unique.

Posted by szshou at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The perceptive Toybane have an extremely interesting post on how and why Nintendo's Super Princess Peach box art has been revamped from the Japanese release of the DS game to its Western debut.

There were some raised sexism-related eyebrows in some quarters when it was revealed, on playing the Japanese import, that Peach's special powers included crying and getting angry - especially since she normally plays a damsel in distress in the first place.

Toybane notes of this design decision, as it extends to the box: "The storyline for “Super Princess Peach” involves Mario and the gang being kidnapped by Bowser. Yet the original Japanese cover portrays Peach clearly stuck in the same state of “distress” she has been in since 1985. The cover shows her with her mouth agape and her eyes widened with fear."

They continue: "When designing the U.S. Box art, NOA clearly tried to soften the misogynistic implications of this image. They chose to replace the bubbled portraits of Peach’s emotional states (known as “vibes” in the game) with a single bubbled portrait of Mario being tied up, a clear attempt to highlight the fact that Peach has been “empowered” and thrust into the role of the heroine."

As the Toybane folks go on to point out, the change isn't wholly successful, but it definitely downplays Nintendo's oddly emotion-orientated game mechanics to some extent - either an improvement, or an 'under rug swept', then.

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Edge-Online has posted one of its regular features taken from Edge Magazine itself, and this time it's an interview with Grasshopper Manufacture's Suda51, a figure of Nathan Barley-esque cultish semi-adoration around the GSW offices.

Of the designer's Killer 7, it's noted sagely, if impenetrably: "Combining grasshopper's cut-up production techniques with Production Studio 4 producer Shinji Mikami's guidance - perhaps the development equivalent of drink and drive - that title's polarised reception cast Goichi's company as a global cult commodity." Also notably mentioned are the just-released Samurai Champloo PS2 game and the forthcoming Contact, both of which have Suda51 oddness scrawled all over them.

Suda Goichi (aka Suda51 - Japanese pun there, yes!) also talks a little about new PS3 title Kurayama ('Darkness'): ""The game is inspired by Kafka, a writer I greatly admire," Goichi begins, apparently not intending to make that challenge any easier on himself. "I thought for a long time about how to adapt the environment in his books into a game - to represent the mystery perhaps by applying filters, or dividing them into various missions.""

However, it's also noted in the Edge feature that concept paintings for the title are "currently the game's only visual representation, given that both its development and developer support from Sony are in their earliest stages." So... come back in a couple of years? Nuts.

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So, we thought we'd try something new, in additional to our columns and other shenanigans - a daily question to be answered by GameSetWatch readers in the comments of this lovable weblog, and in some way related to the day's gaming issues.

The very first one deals with Nintendo's Brain Age, the DS title inspired by the research of Professor Ryuta Kawashima, a prominent Japanese neuroscientist, and discussed in some depth by Satoru Iwata in last week's GDC keynote - the series has collectively sold well over 5 million copies in Japan, and comes to the U.S. next month - with some of us already toting our free GDC copies. The question is:

"Do you think your mother and/or father would appreciate playing Brain Age? In fact, will your dear parents usher in the mainstream game age by buying a DS just to play Nintendo's brain teasers, like in Japan?"

I'm totally going to cheat by making the first comment to give my own answer, but we promise not to post any other replies under ridiculous pseudonyms - all of those belong to you!

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

So, it looks like it's been in vague stealth mode for a while, but an attractively slick new portable-oriented (mobile/DS/PSP/GBA) UK consumer site called Pocket Gamer officially launched today - and it looks both reasonable and readable.

The site (not to be confused with Ziff Davis' U.S. print property Pocket Games) seems to be staffed by journos including current contributors to the UK's B2B-centric Develop magazine, including ex-Edge editor Joao Diniz Sanches and current Develop editor Owain Bennallack, but doesn't appear to be a product of Develop parent Intent Media, rather a spare-time and/or freelance project for those involved.

In any case, some fun PocketGamer articles thus far include an in-depth review of Flitzer, a soccer streaking title (!) in which "In just 90 seconds of streaking, your aim is to achieve as high a score as possible without getting caught by the fuzz (so to speak)", as well as, wait for it, how to play online with N-Gage Arena, a subject rarely broached on other sites. Overall, if you can split your gaming up into portable and non-portable flavors (something that we personally don't always do), this site, or comparative U.S. newcomer Modojo, which has the same concept, may just be for you.

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The guys at Agora Games, the company behind the online community for Tony Hawk’s American Sk8land for the Nintendo DS, mailed to mention that they have "recently put together a mosaic consisting of the best moderated graffiti artwork uploaded [using DS Wi-Fi] by THAS players."

They explain: "Whether you’re an active community member or not, it’s possible that your art has made it into the 16,200 tile mosaic, which is made up of over 8,000 unique player created images", and further note: "You can download a large, 9MB version and zoom in to see the individual graffiti tiles. You’ll notice many of our community members have already found their artwork!"

For example, StigTrix is very excited, exclaiming: "My PurePwnage logo, Gollum, Pikachu(with pink background!?), Grim Reaper, Dr. Evil, SNES logo, Olympic flame... That's all I can find for now!" Is this the point where we offer a prize for the first person to find a logo that doesn't actually appear in the mosaic, and then send you all frickin' insane?

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Atlus, on Friday, announced two (three, really) titles for Nintendo handhelds. The first is Contact on DS, from Grasshopper Manufacture. For whatever reason, Atlus is not presently playing this up, but this is GM's first original title after Killer 7, under Suda51 (they do a lot of contract work for other people - like Samurai Champloo and Shining Soul II). They have an English page at GM now, incidentally.

Anyway, Contact is an RPG-ish game, in which you and this doctor person land on a mysterious planet, and you have to go search for items in order to rebuild the ship. But the interesting thing to me is that you and the professor are very pixelly, and you've landed on a prerendered 2D planet. Most times, the professor's actions will go on in one screen, while you forage for things on the other. Interesting concepts abound, with hunting, fishing, battles, and the like.

The other game announced is Super Robot Taisen. The reason no Super Robot game has come to the US is the crippling license issues of having so many robots from so many companies in one game. This would be hell for a US company. But this is SRT Original Generation, meaning the robots are familiar, but not the exact licenses. Think of it as a legal Taiwanese knockoff. The gameplay and battles of the series remain intact, which is the main reason to play this, though rumor has it the character (text) limit imposed by the Japanese cart may not be easy to get around. Just like the Super Famicom days!

[Oh, one thing a lot of people haven't picked up on yet is that they're bringing both SRT: OG 1 AND 2, both for GBA. There's more good stuff coming from Atlus on the GBA front, we hear, so keep your eyes open.]

Posted by bsheffield at 6:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Stephen Totilo's latest story for MTV.com managed to chat with the female Sonic Team designers behind Sega's Rub Rabbits! (aka Where Do Babies Come From?) for Nintendo DS.

Totilo makes some interesting points on the women-friendly gameplay, noting as background: "The DS has proven to be something of a laboratory for exploring games' gender appeal and women's influence on game design. The 2004 "Sprung" dating simulator was written by Colleen McGuinness, a writer for the TV drama "North Shore." In 2005 designer Heather Kelley, who works for game publisher Ubisoft, created an experimental game called "Lapis," which appeared to be about a cute, touchable blue bunny but was actually, according to Kelley, "a stealthy primer on female sexual pleasure.""

But a central point seems to be that games can unite female and male, as is intended by Rub Rabbits!: "Couples can definitely enjoy this game," said its lead designer, Emiko Sunaga. "I'd also like to think that those who aren't a couple yet will play together, and by doing so bring the bond between them closer together."

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Premiere site of gaming parenthood GamerDad has posted a very interesting 'LongShot' column following up on the recent GSW story about the dangers of PictoChat - or rather, Philadelphia ABC-6 Action News' impressions of those dangers.

GamerDad's Dave Long reveals: "What's not in the story is anything explained by the GamerDad this reporter consulted before going to air. On Monday morning, I received a call from Nydia Han of Channel 6 Action News, asking me about this exact story, the workings of the Nintendo DS, Pictochat and Wi-Fi." In fact: "When contacted for the story, I talked for a good fifteen minutes about the possibility of this situation occurring and what might have to take place to facilitate it. I specifically explained that turning on the DS in a public place has never turned up a Pictochatter."

Nonetheless, as Long notes: "Unfortunately, the story is written in such a way that nothing I said is made clear at all. The story essentially makes it sound like your kids can be contacted on the DS by anyone at any time and that you should beware of predators with Nintendo DS lurking on every corner and on the Internet." Ack, doubly annoying.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've previously covered DS website Neologasm's intense love for import-only Nintendo DS title 'Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan' - a love shared by GSW editors who adore the goofily chivalric rhythm-action stylings, btw.

Well, the latest Neologasm DSBlog post is subtitled: 'Songs for an English localization of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan if Nintendo/Inis want to sell five copies to latte-swilling web 2.0 hipsters', and suggests some genuinely fun possibilities for converting the J-Pop of the original into something approximating Western-friendliness.

Suggestions include: "Bad Religion - Don't Sell Me Short. This song best expresses the central theme I wrote about before: the individual person's empowering responsibility", as well as Junior Senior's unhealthily catchy Move Your Feet, for which it's noted: "If Band Brothers Request Selection can include Dragostea Din Tei [aka the Numa Numa song], I can include this." Anyone else got any bright ideas for songs?

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Genki Videogames, a new small import shop in the UK, has put up a little Animal Crossing story using the Animal Crossing toys/playsets, and a rapidly defrosting refrigerator (or so I've heard). Quite cute, and not in any way offensive (unlike this guy).

It tells the rather endearing tale of a snowman who gets caught in the heat. I did expect this to have something of a humorous bent, but (rather humorously!) it reads more like a fanfi. To wit: "A few of the old boys were down by the lake. Captain was happily rowing away on his boating trips, singing songs of some old maiden in some far away town. KK was playing the blues, strumming his acoustic guitar whilst starring into the deep blue abyss with a rather melancholic look on his whiskered face."

Posted by bsheffield at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You know Phoenix Wright, right? But do you _really_ know Phoenix Wright? Well, an exhaustive feature on Capcom's Phoenix Wright game series over at Hardcore Gaming 101 will make sure that you know your DS-based habeas corpus from your Harvey Birdman.

Or actually, maybe not, as the HG101 author notes: "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is often classified as a "lawyer sim", but that's not entirely true. Phoenix is a defense attorney whose job it is to defend witnesses on trumped-up murder charges. But thankfully, you don't need any prior legal knowledge, because the game world kind of makes up its own rules anyway. "

Although, as it's pointed out: "The only problem with the Phoenix Wright games are their linearity - there are almost never instances where the game deviates from the set path, so they hardly provide any replay value. This can get frustrating in the event that you lose a case, since you need to start from the beginning of the chapter", well... (EDIT: commenter MJS points out 'Actually, you can save at any time by hitting start', so... objection overruled?) [Via SiliconEra.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

A dark thrall has been cast across the beautiful towns of Nintendo's Animal Crossing: Wild World for DS, as 4 Color Rebellion reports on a 'red tulip plague' spreading throughout online users of the game, apparently due to a broken network-transmitted gift item.

According to 4CR: "From what people have been reporting, you’re receiving a letter from _blank_, marked as “From ” containg a gift named “Red Tulips”. The letter contains no content whatsoever and has no closing. The item shows up as a piece of furniture (green leaf) and this is where the fun begins... If you drop this piece of furniture in your house, it’ll be an “invisible” item that you can still walk over, but not put anything over it, nor push any other piece of furniture over it neither. You basically “lose” a space on your floor, not being able to pick the item back up."

The GameFAQs boards are going frantic with worried gamers over this, and there are already commenters in the 4CR story speculating: "Nintendo wouldn’t send out it. Someone must have sent it out themselves… well, hacking the system." So... tragic Nintendo mistake or evil globe-spanning Animal Crossing spoiler attempt? The world will soon know the answer, one way or another...

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The jolly good chaps over at the (new to us) British Gaming Blog have compiled a great pictorial selection of every single Nintendo DS variant, from the obvious (standard Titanium and Electric Blue colors in North America), all the way to the obscurest DSes of them all.

Some of our favorites? The "11 custom Electroplankton DS systems", of which: "One belongs to the game's creator [Toshio Iwai], and the other ten were won by visitors to the Electroplankton exhibition in Japan", are really smart-looking, and the Japanese 'Hot Summer' DS series are pretty darned attractive, as well. [Via SiliconEra.]

[Oh, and talking of limited-edition variants of handheld items, check out a blast from the not-so-ancient past Segagaga's Dreamcast VMU catalog page, with more Visual Memory Units than you can shake a stick at - the 'Dream Point Bank Ichigo' strawberry VMU is precious, my precious.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Rightly getting a lot of blogosphere linkage right now is Cabel Sasser's analysis of Nintendo's Brain Training for DS, as posted on his personal weblog by the Panic co-founder and Katamari Damacy T-shirt vendor.

Cabel comments: "So, the #1 game in Japan is a non-game. My (shocking) conclusion: there is a huge market for new styles of games and new game players, and the gap between "games" and "apps" is getting smaller." And he concludes: "At first it's hard to imagine something like Brain Training ever hitting the top of the USA video game charts. Virtually impossible, I'd wager... But, if you had told me that "Deer Hunter" would've become the top-selling computer game a few years ago, I would have pulled the car over and laughed you out of it — and yet, it happened, stunning a whole generation of developers who were working on "Brown Devil Alien Guns III"-style games."

So, what do people say - is Brain Training really going to set the West aflame, or is it much more of a Japanese thing than any of us, including Nintendo, have necessarily bargained for?

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The UK Times has posted a news story discussing Nintendo's new 'Keep Evolving' ad campaign, which is due to debut in the UK next week, and reveals: "The company is gearing up for a £2 million [$3.6 million] marketing campaign, which will see it take ads in Saga magazine — a title for over 50s — because it has come to the conclusion that targeting young adults is no longer enough."

Those who heard Satoru Iwata's Tokyo Game Show speech last year and have checked out the spectacular performance of the DS in Japan over the holiday season will have no doubt that Nintendo's 'Touch! Generations' strategy is paying off bigtime in the East.

But can the same market broadening happen in the West? Dawn Paine, Nintendo UK's marketing director, is quoted in the article as noting: “The games industry is just going to have to expand the market. Although there has been good growth in terms of units and value over the last 20 years, the proportion of people actually owning games machines has plateaued at around 30 per cent.” In the casual market, companies such as PopCap are exploring the concept of pitching games as both entertaining and mentally beneficial, and it's going to be interesting, given Sudoku's recent world domination drive as a mind sharpening tool, to see whether Nintendo can score the same result for the Brain Training games. [Via Kotaku.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Long-time Japgeek site Insert Credit (home to GSW co-editor bsheffield!) has posted an excellent in-depth analysis of Mitchell's puzzle game Polarium, which also includes a spectacularly frank interview with Mitchell president Roy Ozaki.

The extremely entertaining Ozaki comments, regarding how Nintendo ended up publishing Polarium for DS: "Basically, I'm lazy. I never went to Nintendo. A Nintendo director came to us through Capcom. We were showing him another game and, he spotted Chokkan Hitofude [Polarium]. It was fate - it controls us all. We weren't making it for the DS until we were asked."

Ozaki is also spectacularly outspoken on the recently GSW-mentioned similarities between his company's Puzzloop and PopCap's Zuma, commenting: "My lawyers in Japan are supposed to be on this. Progress is slow because if we do court battle in US, we would be at a disadvantage. You know the Americans and their mentality. We will be up against American jurors. You know how biased they are towards Oriental companies. PopCap Games' lawyer replied my mail and the one from my lawyers' office. In essence, they don't give a sh*t."

He concludes angrily: "I think they knew what they were doing from the start and they are bad businessmen... Ripping off someonelse's idea is bad; they don't belong in the game business. In a few months, you will see what I am doing. I am not a lawyer so we will do battle in a different court." That would be the court of hard knocks, then?

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at video storage ubersite YouTube, fairly recent uploads (thanks for the tip, Tkoch!) include part of a Toshio Iwai interactive music demonstration video from last year's Spanish ArtFutura 2005 festival, where-in the Japanese artist and Electroplankton creator demonstrates some of the music art pieces that directly inspired the Nintendo DS title.

There's a Spanish-language report on Iwai's appearance last October over at VidaExtra, but YouTube (thanks to Hardware12V) also hosts another part of Iwai's presentation, an awesome video demo of Iwai's Tenori-On, a new digital musical instrument co-created by Iwai and Yamaha, and incorporating many of Iwai's overarching themes also explored in Electroplankton. Awesome stuff.

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sharp-witted folks on the Gaming-Age forums have pointed to a Japanese-language interview with Alpha Dream, the developers of Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time for DS, via the Official Nintendo Online Magazine website. [Here's a particularly mangled translation via Altavista.]

Fortunately, the particularly choice part of the interview is visual - a snapshot of Alpha Dream's 'development DS' which the team concocted before the real Nintendo DS hardware was available. As they explain: "The っ which 2 is attached to the top and bottom being able to connect GBA with the け て communication cable, because the っ which means 4 being the button, it is, you attached the controller of the super Family Computer, it is, (laughing)." Hah - well, I guess that doesn't explain it too well - but it's a SNES controller plus two Game Boy Advances connected with a link cable, and it's absolutely priceless.

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here's a riddle for you - which Western-originated franchise is now arguably more popular in Japan than in the West? Why, that would be the Wizardry RPG series, which "was created by Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead of Sir-Tech" back in 1980 while students at Cornell University.

Amazingly, the series, which made it through 8 PC iterations plus several spinoffs in the U.S., is still very much alive in Japan - as the Wikipedia page for WIzardry notes: "The popularity of Wizardry in Japan led to the making of an anime OVA (direct-to-video animation), and several original console sequels, spinoffs, and ports. Most have not been released in the US." In fact, the latest in the series, Starfish's Wizardry Asterisk for the Nintendo DS, was released last week in Japan.

Looking back, one of the most recent console versions of the series, Wizardry: Tale Of The Forsaken Land for PS2, did get a limited North American release in 2001 thanks to Atlus, and has a definite cult following for its oldschool RPG leanings. As for Wizardry Asterisk, Starfish's Japanese homepage for the game isn't that helpful, but a preview from The Magic Box offers up some neat screenshots of the game - think anyone will pick this up for Western release?

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Interestingly enough, some of the best U.S. writers on games spring from the more cerebral, PC-oriented end of the spectrum, which is one of the reasons that Computer Games Magazine, lackluster design notwithstanding, is possibly the best-written multi-format video game mag currently available in the States. A regular CGM contributor of late is Troy Goodfellow, and he recently posted an end-of-year strategy game wrap-up on his personal blog that's a must for those wanting to know what's up with the genre.

Goodfellow exclaims: "It's been a good year for strategy games. The best indie game of the year is a strategy game. The best game of the year is a strategy game. The best budget game of the year is a wargame", and goes on to recommend a host of PC titles, while also noting: "Even if it leads to the end of AAA turn-based strategy titles for the PC, the continuing success of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series is now coupled with the excellent Advance Wars and better than expected Shattered Union."

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's definitely a chart time of the year, and the folks at the UK Guardian Gamesblog start it off with a few personal top three games of 2005 from the writers and contributors to the excellent, literate UK newspaper video game section.

There are certainly a few unexpected choices, mind you - Aleks Krotoski goes for DS dating adventure game Sprung as her favorite, commenting: "The writing's superb, the tasks (flirt mercilessly, get boyfriend/girlfriend, ski) are silly, the potential for this game to utterly twist social relationships into a strange husk of their formal selves", and Nick Gillett plumps for Xbox title Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, suggesting: "Like Fable, this is a game you feel you slightly live in after extended trips through its beautifully rendered alien Wild West. You come for the Halo-esque tactical battles; you stay for the non-intrusive, expertly told story with a very neat and playable twist." Otherwise, World Of Warcraft, Resident Evil 4, and other obvious pieces of smartness make more expected appearances.

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The online arm of GameStop-owned U.S. magazine Game Informer has posted a hands-on preview of Sega/Sonic Team's The Rub Rabbits for DS, the title famously known as 'Where Do Babies Come From?' back East (there's actually a playable .SWF demo of one of the levels on Sega's official Japanese website for the game.)

Anyhow, the folks at GI note: "Sonic Team doubled the number of mini games from 19 to 38" for this sequel to Feel The Magic: XY/XX, and also explains some of the wacky subgames: "Shoot blow darts at falling rivals by blowing into the microphone, knock out buddies and bury them in the snow before a bear eats them, kick away hearts sent over by the chick you don’t like, or even lead piranhas away from your bathing gal by sticking your finger into the water." Maybe we'll get more Feel The Magic cosplay from delighted fans for the sequel, if we're lucky?

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MTV News' Stephen Totilo continues to write some excellent articles for the site, which wasn't previously known for its game coverage, and the latest is up now, interviewing Nintendo of America translator Nate Bihldorff, part of the team that's renowned as one of the best game translation outfits around.

Particularly good? The following section: "A scene in "[Mario & Luigi:] Partners in Time" in which a star-shaped gatekeeper peers into Mario and Luigi's souls got particularly close attention. In the scene, the gatekeeper seems alarmed at whatever he hints at seeing in Luigi. "I remember that this text changed more than any other text in the game," Bihldorff said. The point of the scene, Bihldorff said, was to build Luigi up "as a guy who was always living in the shadow of his older brother and that he needs to break out of that mold sometimes. But the way the text was originally phrased it definitely made him sound like he had some deep dark secret that was awful. I think the powers that be were looking at it like, 'We don't want to paint Luigi as a bad guy here.' "" Right - we have Waluigi for that, after all.

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Joshuah Bearman very kindly slung us over a link to his recent L.A. Weekly column, discussing Nintendogs, which introduces the virtual pet concept neatly to non-geek readers by talking about parroting AI entity ELIZA, and even panders to the in-joke oriented among us by referencing Nintendogging, but more importantly, introduces the following priceless paragraph:

"It was at the Ashley Paige runway show during Fashion Week that I realized how
much I’d become bonded to my little buddy Ding Dong. A very lithe Bijou Philips was trotting toward the cameras in a $300 trim-tailored knit bikini, but I was busy opening a can of virtual wet food for Ding Dong, whom I’d just noticed was “famished,” “thirsty” and “filthy.” Oh my god, poor little Ding Dong — I’m sorry I forgot about you! Can you ever forgive me?"

Having sly reporters DS-ing during glamorous L.A. paparazzi events is presumably why Nintendo will conquer the universe, and maybe next time Paris Hilton loses her dog, she can be temporarily placated by playing with 'little Ding Dong'?

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at DS weblog Neologasm, they've put up a startlingly literate rave for one of the most popular DS import-only games, the pundit-beloved, and, indeed, GameSetWatch-adored 'Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan' (or 'Oh! My! Ouendan!' if you're translating half-assedly), which was developed by Gitaroo-man creators Inis.

As Neologasm explains: "In Ouendan there is no conventional single hero. In each stage, you play a particular group of people--the cheer squad--who empower the individual heroes of their stories to win conflicts." Why is this so great? Well, it's suggested: "At its greatest, Ouendan is about the triumph of personal responsibility. This is not the communist ideal that "the people" as a group hold true power, or Ayn Rand's notion that when freed to do so, some individual humans can be freed from the dead weight of the common people, but the (I suppose) classic liberal idea that common individuals, empowered and working together, can do great things." Also, it has some great J-Pop, if you're not into the highbrow deconstructionism.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)