Let’s face it, you just don’t reach kids with textbooks anymore. Enter the new Revolutionary War App, which aims to change how students learn.

The premise behind this iPad app is very promising and interesting, to get a more rich interaction into a history class and to add more excitement than simply reading a book. While using the app, I pictured a class room full of iPads where the teacher says to play with this app this period instead of using lectures.

Unfortunately this version of the app doesn’t live up to that expectation. There are a lot of videos, but otherwise it’s almost entirely text and pictures offering nothing that a regular text book doesn’t already offer. The videos that they do have, consist of pictures while someone talks, adding little over the text  that consists of the same information.  One such example is they include the poem of Paul Revere both as a video where they show a picture and have someone reciting it, and as the full text of the poem. The app seems to have lacked mentioning the inaccuracies of the poem, such as mentioning the other riders that warned the militia.

They do include one interactive exercise, the NY Battle Simulation. This was a good idea, but needs more polish. The Simulation is very brief on descriptions of the choices, which makes me feel like either you have to know what the expected outcome is or you randomly pick a choice.  If you pick a choice that’s different from what happened in history the simulation simply goes to a page that says “America Loses the War” with a try again button. They should have added more reasoning for why Washington took the actions he did. Information such as the state of the troops at that time, or the number of British and American troops available for the fight, and other troops that could assist in other areas. More important when you picked the wrong answer a description of why it was wrong would be helpful. Would fighting the British there have caused too many loses that they wouldn’t have been able to fight a more important battle later? Would they have likely captured all the troops including Washington?

The try again button points to another major complaint I had in this version of the app; the app has many quality assurance problems. The articles don’t have a consistency in style, the layout of one article will be completely different from another, such as the Title might be in the middle on one and Left Justified on another. There are also spelling mistakes and what looks like errors from a scanner. There are places where they replaced numbers with letters that look similar, Such as, “At z o’clock we bega.1 our march by wading through a very long ford up to our middles. After going a few miles we took 3 or 4 people who were going off to give intelligence.”  There are other places with characters that obviously are wrong, “The letter stated: “the single question then, is whether you consider Boston as now suffering a common cause, and sensibly feel and resent the injury and affront.””

One of the best parts of the app though, is that they included the full text of many important documents and diary entries of people that were relevant to the war. In a book, these documents are usually left out or put in the appendix, because of lack of interest, and the space they take up. In the American Revolution on the Go App they were able to just have a button that linked to the doc, so people could view it easily if they wanted to, or ignore it if they weren’t interested.

One of the developers, Marc Schulman, has stated that they plan “to add by the first week of September a few more interactive activities like the one at the Battle of New York as well a bibliography and of course some fixes for typos”.  I still can see them do some interesting things with more interactive scenarios, but with the version that’s available currently, I would recommend a regular text book over purchasing this app. The app still has interesting promise, but they have a lot of work still to realize that promise.

SEATTLE — The city of Vancouver erupted in violence after the Canucks lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals to the Boston Bruins.

Fires broke out, riots and looting spread, and hundreds were either hurt or arrested in the melee.

The Vancouver Police Department gave the Bruins a police escort to get them to the airport and back home safe.

After the game, many people were left very dissapointed in Vancouver. The city had set up giant televisions on the streets so people could watch the game outside. At the previous games, the crowds had dispersed safely and quietly, even after the games where they had lost. This wasn’t the case last night. The Canadian Broadcasting Company showed a live feed from their building in Vancouver, and some footage from their on-street reporters. The video’s showed a few interesting things. The reporters noted the fact that a lot of the rioters had face masks already so when the police started to use tear gas, its evident from the films that they just pulled them up. This makes it seem that at least some of the rioters planed for a riot when they went to the game.

The video’s showed the rioters flipping cars, and burning them, including two police cars. They also broke into multiple stores including The Hudson Bay Center, a department store, stealing bags and starting fires in the store. Looting was also reported at Future shop, Sears, and London Drugs, with people running out of stores with armfulls of products.

Police could be seen throwing teargas and concussion canisters at the crowds to get the people to move. Officers then just slowly walked forward a few feet to move the crowd along, paused and then repeated.

In 1994 the police caused problems during the Canucks’ Finals loss to New York. Police were accused of being too aggressive, and this time they might have been too lax, as they showed a lot of patience, trying not to instigate the crowd.

The Mayor of Vancouver Gregor Angus Bethune Robertson said that four fires were burning in the downtown area several hours after the game ended.

He called riot the work of a small group of troublemakers who were intent on trashing the party right from the beginging. He said it was “shameful and despicable for a world class city like Vancouver.”

He said the rioters “came down here looking for trouble, and have really turned it into a mess.”

Bradley Ouellette is the Blast West reporter for Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.

SEATTLE — If you haven’t tried EchoChrome, you should. The new game takes a new direction using the Move Controller. Where the first one you changed your viewing perspective to modify the characters world, this one uses the Move to send a light around the screen. The Move Controller acts like a flashlight, and the blocks on the screen all cast shadows. This time the characters are shadows, and don’t actually walk on the blocks, but on the blocks’ shadows. This fits very well into the theme of the first game, since again perception is reality.

The Move Controller responds very well in the game. It actually feels like you’re holding a flashlight.

The levels are accomplished by getting the character to a doorway that is somewhere in the level, though as one of the levels they had for me to play with in their demo showed, even the Final Exit isn’t always what it looks like. One of the levels that I was able to play, you had to create the final doorway by moving the light such that a rectangular block is right below a circular block, forming a shadow in the shape of a doorway, then the character to walk through it.

The bounce ramps are created by having a half of a circle above a path, which means moving the light to place a circle block half way behind or half way in front of the path blocks. The holes this time make less sense, but are easier to see. They are circle in the side of the blocks; this has problems logically since your character is walking on top, not on the sides so shouldn’t really fall through, though this is easier to see.

One new addition is the levels for creating artistic shadows. They showed off a new level where the goal was to create a shadow in the shape of a smiley face by positioning the light in just the right place.

For anyone that loved the original, they should love this one. It kept the charm of the original, while making good use of the Move Controller.

SEATTLE — Who didn’t ever wish to be Godzilla at one time or another and destroy a whole city? This game is all about that.

In Eat Them, you start by creating a monster. They give options for its upper body, lower body, arms, legs and head. So your monster could have three legs, or just one big one. Your monster can have a claw, or a circular saw for a right arm. You can be Godzilla or Robot Godzilla.

The game starts with you in a city with your monster. The goal of the game is to wreak as much havoc as monstrously possible. The level is played with the PS2 controller, with a different button for each type of attack, one for his head, one for each of his arms and one for his legs.

I was also told you can actually pick up the people in the city and eat them, but I was unable to get the game to do that.

It was incredibly satisfying smashing the buildings and stomping on people and vehicles. As the game progresses they send more and more police and military after you to stop you. This starts with a couple of cop cars, than goes up to helicopters and tanks. The more they throw at you the harder the game gets, but your score is based on dollars of damage and casualties, so you want to destroy everything. The game has a red outline of where in the city you can go and that line moves when you destroy enough of the city.

The details in the game are well done, with people streaming out of buildings before they collapse, and the different building styles, and even train tracks in the demo that I got to play. The game features comic book graphics and style — simple but effective.

I thought the game was a lot of fun, if you are feeling frustrated, or angry you can take your anger out on virtual buildings and level a city that you shouldn’t attempt in real life.

SEATTLE — Sony brought a few Move titles to show off at the 2010 Penny Arcade Expo, and with both of the major new motion technology being released soon it was interesting to see what would be available for titles.

It does kinda feel like a Wii game...

One of Sony’s new Move titles is cleverly called Heroes on the Move. You play one of the famous characters: Sly Cooper, Ratchet, Clank, Jak, or Dexter. This is a party title, with short quick games to get a group of people into it.

I was able to play through two levels of the game. The first one was a modified bowling game. The player bowls a ball in the level, then uses the controller to direct the ball to roll in certain directions to hit all the enemies on the board. The ball keeps rolling until it falls off the map. There are bumpers and ramps on the map to help direct the ball in the direction of the enemy units that must be destroyed.

You move the controller up to jump over things or to get it to get to higher areas. The level that I played was fairly easy, but was still fun. The character could also be moved around the board to other starting locations to help get to different spots, like to bowl behind where it started. The controls took small motions to nudge it in different directions, and felt a lot like a Wii Game.

With the glowing orb at the end of the Move controller it was able to very accurately track all my movements, since it knows the exact dimensions of the ball, it knows how far away it is by how big the circle is, and can tell moving forward, and backwards as well as from side to side, and up and down.

The second level I got to play was one where you could throw a disc around to hit the targets. The disc stops when it hits a wall or other object that isn’t breakable. The discs also stop if you try to go to high with them too fast — they stall out and fall to the earth. This level had a limited time and a limited number of discs. As you’re destroying the enemies, you have to also collect more discs and time bonuses to keep going.

Overall the game was fun, and I would enjoy playing it as a friendly party game, and it has potential as a family title. The only complaint is it did feel like a game more designed for the Wii, just using Sony Franchise characters.

SEATTLE — Kung Fu Rider will be coming the PlayStation Network, and it will use the Move Controller. The game features an office worker in Hong Kong riding less traditional "vehicles" down the busy streets.

It was described as similar in style to Crazy Taxi, and we wholeheartedly agree. The demo that we got to play was with an office chair. The character sits on the office chair, backwards, using the seat back as a steering wheel. The final game will feature a variety of weird vehicles.

The movements are fairly simple. You move the controller up and down to go faster, quick upward jerk will cause the chair to jump, so you can leap over objects and grind on rails if you land correctly. They also use two buttons on the controller, one to lean the character back, to duck under objects, and another to do a round house kick. This makes the controls very simple. The game was very arcade like also with the graphics very cartoonish.

The animations in the game when you’d lean back, kick or jump or even when you’d get knocked off your chair were hilarious. Getting knocked off your chair happens in slow motion, with an exaggerated fall backwards.

The object of the levels was to get to the bottom within a time limit, and falling off would punish you by losing time and speed. They have money scattered throughout the level to collect for points.

I thought it was a fun, and quick game. It’s not going to be a real deep story line game, but if you want something quick and fun, you’ll like Kung Fu Rider.

Kung Fu Rider is for 1-2 players and comes out this month.

Game features:

• Find the best routes of escape while racing through 27 exciting courses in six unique areas of Hong Kong.
• Slide solo in single-player mode or have a friend use a PlayStation Move motion controller to aim a "target" around the screen in order to collect items and fend off enemies in the offline multi-player co-op mode.
• Unlock 12 new vehicles that will help you make a speedy getaway through the streets of Hong Kong.
• Check out the tally screen at the end of each race to see your reactions captured by the PlayStation Eye camera during your most extreme wipeouts.

SEATTLE — Valve has running a hands-off demo of the co-op play for Portal 2 during the Penny Arcade Expo.

The Game features two robots, an orange one and a blue one, that Glados has given a set of missions too. The game still plays with the expected commentary, where Glados will say things like "make you wish you could die," after one of the Robots gets "killed.”

The Portal colors were modified slightly, so that it makes it easier to tell which player shot which side of which portal. One portal is red and yellow, and the other is blue and purple. They also added a new “ping” tool. The developers noticed that even when the two players are in the same room telling each other what to do would be tricky, especially with how tricky some of Portal’s puzzles can be. The tool points a marker where you want the other player to place a portal. This helps coordinating, where you can tell the other side what you need them to do.

The co-op missions will be about twice the length of the original portal game. They will be the same length as the single player missions.

They then showed off some of the new puzzle devices in the game. There is a laser, which can be redirected with light cubes, but they require extra caution in the co-op mode that you don’t accidentally use it on the other player. There is a light platform that the robots can walk across, and like all other objects in the game, the new ones will move through the portals. They showed off one of the ways that two players will be needed in the new game, by having the light path going over the acid from one player’s portal, than needing to change the direction to go down another hallway. If the first player moved their portal, the path they are standing on would disappear, and both robots would fall into the acid.

They showed another co-op solution in making more practical a move that was previously a fun stunt to pull in the game. It had been fun to shoot a portal on the ceiling and the floor, so that the player falls from infinitely gaining speed to terminal velocity. In the original one, this, while still being a fun move, wasn’t very practical since the screen moves so fast that it’s near impossible to redirect the upper portal anywhere useful. With two players though, one player starts falling through the other player’s portals, and then they redirect the output to a desired location, shooting the falling player out at maximum velocity, without requiring a huge cliff.

They also added more comic relief to the game. The two robots can wave at each other, and even hug. It’s very funny to watch one of them "forget" to hit a switch, killing the other, and then offer a hug in apology. Though in a non-demo situation, I’m not sure how often either move would be used.

The video ended with a demonstration of the new features of the game, and the two robots preparing to begin their task. I’m looking forward to this when it’s released on Feb 9, 2011, on the Xbox 360, PC, Mac and PlayStation 3.

LOS ANGELES — At E3 this year, we were given a special treat from Square, the makers of the hugely popular, long-running Final Fantasy series: a (mostly) technical demo of their newest entry into the franchise, Final Fantasy XIV. Like XI, this installment will be an MMORPG, so giving much of an in-depth demo beyond the graphics wasn’t too feasible with the time constraints of E3.

The demo was set up with NVidia’s 3D display system (support for which may or may not make it to the end user), and once we got used to wearing the glasses, we were blown away. In the town setting of the demo, we were able to look out into the distance or view objects up close, and we could even distinguish between individual blades of grass and flowers that you can even watch grow from all different angles. The lighting, too, was impressive: the sun leaves varying degrees of shadow from different objects, and going from outside to inside, or vice versa, causes the camera to mimic the adjustments your eyes would have to make in the real world, refocusing to the light level.

Character models are exceptionally detailed and animated, too, as evidenced by a non-player character inside one of the buildings cooking food: you can see individual items of food being tossed as he cooks, leaving a surreal, Uncanny Valley-reminiscent sensation at how lifelike his actions were. NPCs are even rendered at much greater distances than similar games, allowing one to feel really immersed in their surroundings, and will certainly lead to a feeling of being in a densely populater area when there are lots of people around. If you look off into the distance, for example, you might see little specks moving around the terrain; these are actual characters, instead of having flat backgrounds with objects that only load when you get within a few feet of them.

After allowing us to wander around their town, all the people demoing were joined into a party to go on a simple quest to kill two crab-like creatures. Where the quest system shines is in the reactive nature of different elements of the task at hand: for example, after killing one crab, the other escapes and finds another to help fight back, and the quest changes and we then had to kill three crabs instead of the original two. This process can repeat, and a simple quest to kill a creature or two can grow into a more epic battle.

It’s still too early to tell how the latest foray into the world of Final Fantasy will turn out, but this early glimpse is promising. If you were a fan of XI, this could be just what you’re waiting for, but it’ll be quite a feat to take some of the market share from World of Warcraft.

LOS ANGELES — THQ is releasing a new Video Game, to accompany the new DreamWorks movie “Megamind.”

There seems to be fairly limited details on the new movie, mostly based on the two trailers that have been released. The new Movie is about the Super Villain Megamind who manages to kill his opponent. He then decides he needs a new super hero, so attempts to create a new one. Unfortunately his newly created super hero actually decides he likes being a villain better, and instead of ruling the world just destroys everything. This forces Megamind to take on the role of super hero to stop him. The premise behind this movie and game is interesting, that "villains make the best heroes."

The game plays as Megamind, and his trusty side-kick Minion, trying to stop Titan and the Doom Syndicate. Megamind’s super power is cliche, his mind. The game generally follows the movie, but since games tend to be longer they had to add more enemies to fight. They didn’t just come up with random characters themselves though, they used some of the extra characters designed for the movie that were removed, because of time constraints. THQ worked with the movie team to make sure these added characters would fit with the story.

THQ also made an interesting decision on how to make the game mult-iplatform. Instead of having a game for each platform that aims at the lowest common denominator, they decided to make three different games focusing on the strengths of each platform. The HD version of the game is a single player with second player assist, similar to Super Mario Galaxy but is only available for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. For the Wii, though they went with a 4 player brawler, where you can unlock new characters by beating them. The DS, and the PSP are aimed at fitting their screen, and using their technology but being a different game than the HD version.

While at E3, we were able to try out the HD version. They designed it to be a good family game, approachable by all ages.

The controls are very simple, just basic movement on the D-pad, a button for shoot and another for action. They made nearly everything in the game destructible, figuring that kids like to go around destroying things.

THQ tried to make the puzzles not too simple to bore the adults. This was harder to see from the short demo of the game we saw. The game seemed to play like any 3D platformer. With super power upgrades, and bad guys to beat up along the way. The game did seem fun. We even saw a Tesla gun upgrade that let us chain hit enemies, one after another. Though like a lot of movie based games it will likely rely heavily on the success or failure of the movie.

Megamind the game is scheduled to be released with the movie in November.

LOS ANGELES — THQ’s "The Last Airbender" game, based on the M. Night Shyamalan film, comes out today.

The movie is based on a cartoon “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” To avoid confusion with James Cameron’s movie they dropped the Avatar part of the title. In the game, you play the characters of Aang the Air Bender, and Prince Zuko and a disguised Prince Zuko who lacks his supernatural abilities.

This is an action exploration game, where you can use the special abilities of the characters to fight your way through the levels. They also used the motion abilities of the Wii, to help add more special moves. This will include arrows showing up on the screen that you need to move the Wii Mote in the proper direction to execute a special move. If you are either Aang or Prince Zuko when he is not in disguise the special moves include that characters Elemental moves. Prince Zuko has special fighting moves when he’s disguised.

The game used the special moves to get past certain areas. Though it’s labeled as an exploration game, it seemed to be a fairly linear game to play.

The level we got to play at E3 did have spots where the enemies could sound an alarm to call in more reinforcements, if you can kill all the guards before they got to the giant gong, than you had less enemies to fight.

The game mechanics seemed fairly simple though, which I figure was to make it accessible to a younger crowd. Since the cartoon that the movie is based on is aimed at kids ages 6-11, it looks like they tried to make it so that age group would still be able to play the game. The game didn’t strike me as too repetitive to be boring for the older players though. Getting from one room to another did require jumping from ledges, or opening doors. Though the game looks like it relies heavily on the story of the Movie, so I’ll have to wait to see if that is any good when the movie , and the game is released.

LOS ANGELES — Konami started their press conference talking about Def Jam Rapstar and the company’s multi-year deal with Def Jam.

The game is interesting in the connection between the game, your computer and your mobile phone. They claim they are going for a "constantly connected game." The game will allow the player to make video’s and then upload the videos to their site. Then their friends can watch the video’s and vote on them. They get updates on their phone from the votes. They are claiming that 1 million views on their website really make you a rapper. Konami’s logic leaves out the question of people liking a free video, vs paying for a CD. I’m interested to see whether anyone will become a real rap star after making it big on their site, will be interesting to watch for.

Russel Simmons is promoting the game. He believes that this is an area that has been ignored. He also talked about the benefits of hiph op, even claiming, that one "benefit of hip hop, we have president Obama."

Their next title was Lucha Libre AAA: H©roes del Ring. They will be releasing a wrestling game based on the Mexican Wresting style known as Lucha.

There will be a new Saw game, called Saw 2 Flesh and Blood, where they will use the same style as the original, having victims, like a doctor in a free clinic stealing the drugs. This game will use not only Togen Bell’s voice, but his likeness for a character also. The main character this time will be the son of Detective Tap, though they added an interesting part that not all freed subjects will greet you with open arms, "unless they stab you in the back."

Ninety Nine Nights 2 will come out June 29 with an online leader board and the ability to kill even more enemies with one attack than before. They are labeling it as an "extreme hack and slash title." Though they are enhancing the gameplay so that you can’t simply repeat the same move forever.

A new 2D side scrolling game will be coming to the US. It’s called Otomedius and it’s excellent. This is aimed at both the hard core shoot-em-out genre, or for new players to this space. This game is similar to Gradius, and Parodius.

Later, Konami introduced a slightly different game, Dance Masters for the Microsoft Kinect. Up to two players can be on the screen at once. You can move your body freely. The game instructs the players on how to move by putting silhouettes on the screen for how the player should be standing at the next spot in the music. The game allows the player to save the dance scene and show it off to their friends, or use it to have backup dancers for their next time.

The next titles weren’t discussed just mentioned. From Hudson, a Bey Blade game, coinciding with the re-launching of the TV series. Decca Sports 3, and for the Kinect, Decca Sports Freedom.

There will be a new Silent Hill game, this time the main character is a Criminal on the run, that wondered into Silent Hill.

Kojima Productions introduced one of the new Metal Gear Solid games, called Raijin. This one will all be about swords and cutting. The game allows you to cut in precious ways. They show this off by having the character cut up a watermelon into slices. They also made the game allow the player to take parts, or absorb energy from your enemies. They made this with some strategy by making the player decide on what to take from the enemies. The options to take from the enemies are parts, energy, or information. They also improved the Stealth on the game from the Stealth used by previous heroes. There is no hiding on the ground, it’s a Hunting Stealth. The Story takes place between MGS2, and MGS4, and will describe how Riding got to become person he is together.

They next showed off info on the two new Castlevania games. The first, Harmony of Despair, is interesting and a little different. There is a big screen composed of many individual screens for the action. The game uses the HD TV’s to have 10million dots on the screen. Each individual screen is more like the familiar 2D platforms, but the enemies can follow you from screen to screen. The game allows the player to jump from screen to screen, but the enemies can follow you also. They are working it to add more features if it sells well. Starting with five playable characters, but add more and add more stages if it sells. This is scheduled for release on XBLA this summer.

The last video they showed was for Castlevania Lords of Shadow. That is scheduled for release this fall, on PS3, and Xbox 360. Not much more information was given on this game than the video.

LOS ANGELES — Here’s everything else that Ubisoft brought to the table at E3.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

Ubisoft is working on a new Ghost Recon, and gave us a demo of it at E3. The game is set in a slightly futuristic setting. Your team has optical camouflage using nanotechnology. Though the enemy has some tricks to combat the camouflage, they have technology such as thermal glasses. Though in the build they showed off the thermal glasses were not able to see you if you didn’t move. The camouflage also has the limitation of not working if you are running, or attacking.

Where the game really looked interesting was the synchronized shooting. You can lay out your targets, and see where the other people on your team are shooting, and then in single player the computer will count down, or if you are playing multiplayer one of the players can communicate to the others when to shoot so all the enemies go down together. The game is designed for 4 player co-op to effectively use this feature.

Driver San Francisco

Another interesting game that Ubisoft was presenting at E3 is a new game in the Driver franchise, Driver San Francisco. The game is currently running at 50 frames per second, but they are working to get it up to 60 frames per second, for the release. They made it realistic, with the hands moving along the steering wheel as the player turns the car. They also licensed the cars used in the game, so you can smash up cars that you recognize. The interesting part of the game is the shift ability, where you can shift from one car to any other car in the game. This is interesting since you could be chasing after a bad guy, and then shift into another car to help catch them. Such as shifting into a Big truck to block a road ahead of where the guy is heading, or to collide head on with the bad guy.

The shift ability was fairly easy to work when they let us try it out, you just hit a button, and it slows down time, and you can see everything from above. As you progress in the game it allows you to shift over greater distances. They also include the fact that when you shift into a car, it has real people in it, so you can see into their world, seeing a quick video of the passenger of the Car. The game is scheduled for Q4 on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC/Mac, with a special version available for the Wii

H.A.W.X. 2

Ubisoft was also showing off a new Tom Clancy game, called H.A.W.X 2. This is designed to be more of a realistic fighter simulation game. The game includes takeoffs, landings and even in air refueling. They added more up-close dog fights than the first one, and 4 player Co-op. The game takes place with a rising insurgency, and the Player will take the role, as Russian, British, and American Pilots throughout the game.

The game has a few other improvements over the first one, with the detail of the ground and aerial targets breaking apart on impact, and an overall improvement in the AI for enemies. They really worked on the realistic with these improvements to details, with people moving on the ship, as they would preparing for the launch of a plane. They increased the details of the terrain since it was a major complaint with the first one, and included animation of ships sinking when they are hit.

One of the features they were pushing when they showed off the game was precision bombing. That they feel the game is the most realistic, depiction of a bombing run. They also tried to make things that in real life would be hard, harder, like landing on an aircraft carrier. They didn’t want it impossible though, so they show horizontal lines for elevation as you land and have red and green lines to depict to high an angle, or too low. They also force the player to control speed and altitude as the plane comes in. This makes for an interesting aspect of realism.

LOS ANGELES — With the 25th anniversary of “Top Gun,” Double 6 and Paramount are working on a new downloadable game.

This time they are working with Jack Epp Jr., the original author of “Top Gun” to make sure the game stays true to the original, Academy Award-winning film.

The developers are heavily skewing the game to the Indian Ocean mission at the end of the movie, and they are using the Top Gun school to get the players acquainted with the game.

The game has two modes, a story mode where you attempt to accomplish missions, following the story, and a “Horde Mode.” In Horde mode, it’s an endless wave of enemies that keep coming. You have to kill as many as possible and get the best score you can.

The game included a few interesting unique features inspired from real life fighter experiences. They animated the wings on the F-14 to move like the real ones do. The wings move in and out depending on the speed of the craft. They also created a tunnel vision similar to what real pilots experience before they black out. This was interesting when playing with the game, because when you pull High G’s, the sides of the screen go black, and you can only see a circle in the center. This creates an interesting counter to going too fast or being too hard on the stick.

They added a special mode Called "CFI" which allows the player to keep constant focus on the selected enemy. This allows the player to pull the maneuvers from the movie. This will move the game into a third person point of view for a short period. The game was fun in an arcade style. The Missiles regenerate so even though it is being limited you aren’t limited to only what the plane can launch with. That would make the horde mode too hard.

The graphics are pretty simple, consistent with other downloadable games. They’ve stuck with the original F-14 Tomcat fighter, which was retired by the Navy a few years ago. It’s good to see the Tomcat live on.

With a dearth of flight simulation games lately, you should definitely give this a go.

Top Gun is a quick one. We got our first look at it at E3 this year, and it’s already releasing in July, exclusively for the PlayStation Network.

LOS ANGELES — Speaking with Ubisoft associate producer Jean Francois Boivin, Blast was able to see the new Assassin’s Creed game, called Assassins Creed brotherhood, which comes out this November.

There is a full single player campaign, which was shown but not playable at E3 this year. The game takes place in the city of Forli, after the Events of Assassins Creed 2, where Ezio attacked the Pope. The Pope has come after Ezio. He has to now defend the city of Forli. The game uses the Caterina Sforza, who Ezio is currently sleeping with, who was historically in charge of Forli.

The story focuses again on the Apple of Eden, and its ability to control the minds of people. Through this, the game focuses on the battles between the Assassins and the Knights Templar.

The game uses more transportation methods. Horses will now be able to joust, and the player can use Flying Machines.

Ubisoft says there will be some 20,000 Non-Playable Characters, and a Hud Display showing, showing info such as how many people are left alive in the game.

The game was also designed to be more to have a faster attack system, so it’s not so much defensive oriented. Boivin, showed Ezio moving through the city, using ropes to fly up the side of buildings, and shooting the attacking forces with cannons, blowing up siege tools.

We were then able to actually play the multiplayer part of the new game. The game allows each player to select a character to play as, and what special abilities they want to use. The level is populated with many NPC’s for each player that is in the game. So walking around you will see three or four of the same character walking around on the screen. Each player is given a target of another player in the game, if a player is good, they might even have multiple people targeting them. So you have to sneak up on your target, trying not to alert them that you are not a NPC, and at the same time, not alert the person targeting you that you’re a real person.

This situation made it interesting in the game, that often when you kill your target, by killing them you expose yourself, and get killed by the person targeting you. There is also help in the radar that will point in the direction of your target. The radar is represented as a circle, with a highlighted section pointing in the direction of your target. The section highlighted gets bigger as you get closer to your target, until your near the other player, and then it’s a full circle. This means that it will get you close to your target, but not identify the exact person if there is multiple of the same character on the screen at the same time.

If you are seen then, you can run and hide. If you hide long enough the player looking for you will lose their target, and get a new one and a new player will be assigned to get you. The game allows you to hide in haystacks and use doors to slow down your pursuer. Likewise if the person your pursuing runs, you have to catch up with them before you lose the.

The game looks like its multiplayer will be the main selling point with the single player missions as a nice added bonus.

LOS ANGELES — Sega is working on a new 2D platform Sonic game in the spirit of the original series. They had a demo of it available at E3 2010, allowing people to play one of three early levels in the game. The game takes place after the Sonic and Knuckles game.

Sega promises that this is the beginning of a new series of games. The game starts with Sonic going off exploring, and Egg-Man comes after him wanting to just kill him now and get him out of the way, so Sonic won’t stop his next plan.

The game levels are built to feel like the original with a slight difference. The bosses will play like the original but with upgrades. The game then has a twist ending that will lead into Episode 2, and continuation of the new series. They are taking great pains with this title, since the last game in the series was in 1994, there is a lot of time in here, and gamers have a lot of expectations from a new sonic game.

This is evident from the fact that they have delayed the game to make it correctly. They were originally scheduled to release at the end of this summer, but are now targeting the end of the year. When I played with the game it looks like the original sonic games, just having a higher resolution. Sonic has a nice upgraded look, without changing too much to character. I was disappointed with Sonic’s acceleration in the demo. When you move Sonic he walks too long before he will start to run.

They said that was one of the issues that they have decided to rework after showing the demo off. I also had an issue that when you press down to go into a roll it would usually not start spinning rolling fast, but goes back to slowly moving. This bothered me as being very unlike the previous sonic games that were always about speed. The people at the booth said that was one of the reasons they have delayed the release of the game, to give them more time to make it more like sonic.

Sega has included the Chaos emeralds in the new Levels. Like the original games, it requires 50 rings to activate get them, though the game allows the player to replay, and jump to a level that they want. This is nice since if you miss a chaos emerald you don’t have to start the game from the beginning like the previous ones.

They included the original power-ups from the original series, plus some additions from the later Sonic Adventure games. One such addition is the ability to jump attack from one enemy to another. The invincibility and fast shoes are back though.

They made some differences between the PlayStation 3, iPhone, Xbox 360, and Wii Versions for the special stages. The PS3 and the Wii can control using the Tilt controllers. The iPhone can control any level with either tilt, or by controls on the screen for directional pad, and action button for jumping. They arranged the level, and the View point on the iPhone so that the controls on the bottom wouldn’t obstruct viewing the level.

Definitely excited to see this one come out.

We have glasses of every kind to protect our eyes—sunglasses, ski goggles and swimming goggles. But do we have any protection while playing video games?

According to GUNNAR Optiks at PAX, sitting in front of a television for five or six hours straight will put a strain on the eyes. The eyes were designed to focus on things further away than a monitor or television set, yet many Americans spend more time looking at these than anything else. Most jobs require a significant amount of time staring at a computer screen. Then after work we come home and sit in front of another screen for entertainment, watching shows or playing video games.

GUNNAR Optiks found that the long-term viewing of digital information causes what they call "Digital Eye Fatigue" (DEF). They define DEF as blurred vision, eyestrain, dry eyes, light sensitivity or headaches. GUNNAR claims their performance eyewear will increase contrast, optical resolution and detail.

Like many people, most of my job requires sitting in front of a keyboard and monitor, so I decided to try the glasses they designed for computer monitors. My experience after wearing them off and on for a couple weeks was mixed. I have never worn corrective eyewear and rarely bother with sunglasses. This made the experience of wearing glasses all day particularly odd. When I first looked through them, I could very quickly see that they affected my vision. If I put them on and took them off the computer screen looked very visibly different. I noticed right away how they shift the color spectrum.

When I put the glasses on, the screen was definitely easier to look at—though it leads to my major complaint with the glasses. When I had them on it was fine looking at the screen but doing everything else was requiring me to take them off. GUNNAR claims that you should be able to multitask and do other things with the glasses on, but I found that it messed with my vision if I walked away from my desk. This may turn out to be more or less important for each person.

I do believe the glasses should help with dry eyes. The research GUNNAR used in designing the glasses showed that people looking at monitors tend to blink less. The glasses wrap around the user’s head, which should keep moisture present and trapped behind the glasses. I’ve personally never had a problem with dry eyes before but I did notice that my eyes would blink more rapidly for a short time because of the moisture.

My eyes did feel less strained at the end of the day, and I think that helped me throughout the week. On the other hand, when I took them off my eyes had trouble adjusting to everything else temporarily. I would recommend the performance glasses if your eyes are tired or feel dry at the end of the day. For me, they had about the same effect as taking a break from the screen to get a drink of water or to talk to co-workers.

GUNNAR Optiks digital eyewear retails between $79- $189. For more information, check out http://www.gunnars.com/gunnar_corporateinfo.php.

Maurice Clemmons has a lengthy criminal record (Handout/Pool photo)

SEATTLE — Maurice Clemmons, the suspect in the brutal, execution-style slaying of four Parkland, Wash. police officers, was shot and killed Tuesday morning in the South Seattle area after confronting police.

Police said they found one of the dead officer’s guns on Clemmons.

Several other people in the Seattle and Tacoma areas have been arrested and face charges of aiding and abetting the alleged cop killer. Police said they arrested the suspected getaway driver who helped Clemmons escape Parkland after he allegedly walked into a coffee shop and gunned down Parkland Sergeant Mark Renninger, 39, and Officers Ronald Owens, 37, Tina Griswold, 40, and Greg Richards, 42.

Authorities expect several arraignments in the next few days.

Clemmons was a lifetime criminal, with nearly a dozen felony collars.

Police would not say how they found Clemmons of give details on the confrontation that led to the suspect’s demise.

This is a special report from Blast West with Bradley Ouellette on the ground in Washington.

SEATTLE — The gunman burst in with murder on his mind early this morning. Four police officers sat in a coffee shop just outside Parkland, a Tacoma suburb 40 miles south of Seattle. They were working on their laptops, preparing to start their shifts — three men and a woman — when the shots rang out. It was an ambush. None survived.

The officers, representing five of 100 members of the Parkland Police Department, were gunned down at around 8:15 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.

Lakewood Police Chief Bret Farrar identified the four slain police officers notifying their families. "All four of our slain officers had been with this department since it started five years ago,” Farrar said.

The four slain are:

• Sergeant Mark Renninger, 39. He had 13 years of law enforcement experience and leaves a wife and three children.
• Officer Ronald Owens, 37. He had 12 years of law enforcement experience and leaves a former wife and a daughter.
• Officer Tina Griswold, 40. She had 14 years of law enforcement experience. She leaves her husband and two children.
• Officer Greg Richards, 42. He had eight years of law enforcement experience and leaves his wife and three children.

Police are searching for a man named Maurice Clemmons and have tagged him as a person of interest in connection with the horrific shooting.

Clemmons, according to the Seattle Times, has a long criminal history and was pardoned in Arkansas by then-Governor Mike Huckabee nine years ago. The Times reports Clemmons’ record includes five felony convictions in Arkansas and at least eight felony charges in Washington.

Sherri Badger, Public Information Manger for Washington’s Pierce County Emergency Management department told Blast that witnesses described the shooter as black, between 5’8″ and 5’10″ wearing a black coat and blue jeans with a “scruffy face.”

Parkland, a newly incorporated city only 14 years old, is left trying to make sense out of a national tragedy.

“Shock. Shock and sadness,” said Hunter George, a spokesman for Pierce County, Washington, in an interview with Blast. “The fact that someone would gun down four police officers in cold blood is almost too much to imagine”

Parkland Police Officer Ed Troyer said officers frequent the Forza Coffee Shop because of its central location in the city. The shop, The Associated Press reported, is owned by a retired cop.

One of the slain officers may have gotten a shot off, Troyer said, but none of them were prepared for what happened. “This was more of an execution,” Troyer said. “The officers were sitting there with a computer going over their paperwork, which is also a normal activity on a Sunday morning before their shift starts.”

Troyer believes the officers were targeted. Investigators do not believe the gunman came into the shop to rob it but instead to kill police officers.

The pacific northwest has seen an unusual string of these kinds of brazen shootings in the past two years. Six people were shot at a gas station last year.

On Halloween, Seattle Police Officer Timothy Brenton was shot and killed while sitting in a cruiser with a rookie cop. The trainee, Britt Sweeney was grazed in the neck. Christopher Monfort, 41, who also allegedly firebombed four police cars in October, was arrested for the shooting after he was injured in a shootout with police in early November. He’s still in an area hospital.

Authorities do not believe the shootings are connected.

Troyer said that the department has had tremendous support from other police departments. Nearby McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma even offered assistance.

The shooting does not appear to be gang related. “For a gang member it would be way out of the box,” he said, “and they don’t like the attention.”

George said authorities are doing their best to reassure this city’s 24,000 residents that they’re safe. “We’re trying to reassure everyone,” George said. “There’s a massive manhunt going on.”

Washington Governor Chris Gregoire said she was “shocked and horrified” upon hearing about the shooting.

“Our police put their lives on the line every day, and tragedies like this remind us of the risks they continually take to keep our communities safe,” Gregoire said in a statement. “My heart goes out to the family, friends and co-workers of these officers, as well as the entire law enforcement community.”

In a joint statement released to Blast, Parkland Mayor Douglas Richardson and City Manager Andrew Neiditz said the shooting was the “most tragic event in Lakewood’s 14 years as a city.”

“We lost four of our finest in a shocking, heartbreaking, and senseless murder,” the officials said. “Our hearts, thoughts, and prayers are with the families and colleagues of these innocent victims during this extraordinarily difficult time.”

The slain officers were all part of Lakewood’s original police department, which was created just five years ago. All transferred to Lakewood as commissioned law enforcement officers from other communities. The department is currently seeking accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, and a team from the commission is due in the city next Saturday to review the new department for the prized accredited status.

“Once we have fully notified extended family members, we will release the identities of the slain officers,” the mayor and town manager said.

Those with information on the crime should call 866-977-2362.

Nvidia was pushing their new 3D stereographic technology at PAX. Nvidia is in a unique position to add Stereographic video to DirectX or Open GL games. The Geforce 8, 8800, Geforce 9 9600, Geforce 200, or higher support this option already. Stereographic video uses two images, with one shifted slightly to the side of the other image. Then you show one image to the left eye and the other to the right eye (through the use of lenses) it will look like the image has depth that you otherwise could not perceive.

There were three ways Nvidia presented at PAX that deliver the image to either eye. Two of those setups everyone should be familiar with, since theaters and home movies do this. There is the old way of tinting each image either blue or red, and then wearing glasses that have colored glasses so you can only see one or the other color. They had one monitor in their booth hooked up this way so that you can use the cheap glasses to see in three dimensions. The problem with this setup is that obviously it messes with the colors, and looks weird.

The other way theaters do it is using polarized lenses. They then interlace the video and use a special projector so that you only see certain portions of the screen with each eye. One of the other groups in the expo hall was showing off this setup. They were selling monitors that would work with the standard polarized lenses. I tried these out while at PAX; some of the demos that they were showing seemed kind of blocky or pixelated. I’m not sure if this was because it was interlaced, or because they were demos just to show off the technology, and not real games.

Nvidia was mostly showing off their 3D Vision glasses. These didn’t require any special monitor, though, in reality, anyone that would want one of these setups would have to buy a new monitor. These glasses work by opaquing the image to each eye alternately 120 times a second. By swapping the image from left to right eye 120 times a second the monitor just shows the image for each eye every other frame. Most CRT’s will have the necessary 100Hz or higher. With CRT’s people bought high refresh rates because they reduced strain on eyes, and were nicer to look at. With LCD’s the manufactures almost never bothered to go above 60 Hz. The problem is that for Nvidia’s 3D vision graphics you only would get half the fps the monitor naturally gets, so with a standard 60 Hz monitor that is only 30 fps which is far too low for most games.

This means that, fancy new LCD you just bought is becoming obsolete already. Ironically though, if you still have your old, huge CRT around, it will probably work great with that. The demo that they showed of the goggles on looked really good; you can see the image clearly, with no real distortion to the image. How well the 3D feel works somewhat depends on the game, but like mentioned above Nvidia has an advantage on the tech in this field. They are given the 3D model and told to render it for one point of view normally. All they had to do to get the stereographic images was to instead move the point of view slightly to the two sides and render two separate images instead.

While talking to the people in the booths it was interesting to note that this will work with many older games with no modifications. Since almost all Windows games already use DirectX it’s not that difficult to do the modification to double render for them. It’s interesting to note what could go wrong though. 2D objects may not work properly, ‚ and similarly all Full Motion Video Sequences (FMV) are likely pre-rendered so will not work.

Overall I think the technology is pretty cool. And will love to play with it myself some more to see which games work with it, and which do not. Since it works with most Nvidia cards currently on the market, it’s also an accessible technology. The worst thing is that you have to probably buy a new LCD monitor. It’s also ironic that it works with older CRT’s more than the new tech, so for once, those who are technologically behind may have the advantage.

Space fans are going to be excited by Warner Bros. latest work. When the Space Shuttle Atlantis was recently up in orbit working on the Hubble Telescope, they brought along an IMAX camera to record the entire procedure of repairing the giant telescope.

The nerds in us are wicked excited for this one.

“Hubble 3d” will be released to select IMAX theaters on March 19, 2010, with further availability on April 23 to coincide with the Original Launch of Hubble.

The IMAX camera shot film of the entire repair of the Hubble Telescope. With the shots of the intricate work in space they accomplished, the viewers of this film will feel like their standing in space next to the astronauts.

Said director Tony Myers, “We have waited a long time to get the IMAX camera back into space and finally the opportunity came with the amazing final repair mission of the Hubble Space Telescope.”

The movie will consist of the video shot of repairs and upgrades and even its first images after repairs were completed. This will allow the audience to really appreciate the significance that the Hubble Telescope has been to us over the last 20 years — it’s position above the Earth allows it to see space farther off than any telescope on the ground.

The nerds in us are wicked excited for this one.

SEATTLE — The Peregrine at first glance looks like someone took a black glove and tried to make it look like a cyber punk costume. It has metal running up and down each finger, and metal tips to the thumb, and along the palm of the glove.

In reality it’s a keyboard attached to your fingers. They are using hand gestures similar to American Sign Language to control your computer and your computer games. If you touch your thumb to your middle finger at the end it will trigger one key, or macro, if you touch it in the middle it triggers another one. They are claiming that there are over 30 combinations of gestures that the hardware recognizes; when I got to try it, the presenter showed me that he used 40 different ones. All the gestures consist of you touching the end of one of your fingers to the middle of another one, or to the palm of your hand.

The metal cables that are running through the glove were branded, as “military grade” the presenter said that he had abused his glove and was unable to break the metal cables. It seems like the fabric in it would tear long before the rest of the glove was damaged. They said that the glove is also the cheapest part–probably about $20–since all the actual intelligence and work is in the cable that goes from the glove to the computer.

They had areas where there were no contacts like above the palm of the glove with netting instead of the fabric so that your hands won’t sweat. The Fabric was also flexible enough that it can be used while typing. I had no trouble moving my hands when I put it on; it’s a thin glove so shouldn’t give much trouble doing dextrose activities like picking up objects, like say, going to the fridge for a drink. Though, with the metal contacts on it I’d avoid actually spilling water on it. They said that it is hand washable though since it’s durable metal, and just plain fabric, so if you do spill something on the glove you can still clean it.

To make it easy to leave the computer to get things the glove snaps on and off. The glove has a magnet and a proprietary connection on the back that connects to a USB wire. The wire again has all the logic for the glove in it.

The spots on the glove that they sewed into the fabric show where to press your fingers to. The software though is able to calibrate to how you actually press your fingers. Also if you miss the spot you could have two spots do the same action if you want.

The configuration software that they showed me has a picture of the glove, as a guide and then allows the user to calibrate the glove, set the macro’s or setup a configuration for the glove, or setup multiple configurations. The picture has dots for the points on the glove, where you can click on a dot and set the macro, or key in the assignment screen, or go through how you would do a given gesture in the calibration window so the glove fits your exact style of game play. They also were nice when you want to clear data from a point; they make you do that action so you confirm that is really the action you want to clear, and not a miss-click of the mouse.

Different games might need different configurations. One macro that’s good for one application could be bad for another. They have the configuration program as a tray icon in windows that you can click on to quickly set the configuration.

The Actions that are caused by certain movements of your hand can be triggered to a simple keyboard press, or to an elaborate macro, allowing you to execute a complex command with just a simple hand gesture. These macros and keyboard actions are powerful enough that people end up completely replacing their keyboard with the glove.

They were also claiming that it’s faster to learn a new game than a keyboard; I’m not as certain about this claim. It’s definitely a learning curve to starting to use for the first time, once you’re used to the gestures it’s probably easier to learn new games than that first game, and it is nice that with most games they decide that the keyboard hot keys are related to the action by being a letter in the command. This can be hard to remember 60 or so different commands and which key matches to them. In the peregrine they can be mapped based on their location on the screen, such that the index finger is row 1, the middle finger is row two, and so on. They could also be mapped based on type of action. The tricky thing in starting a new game this way is remembering which finger is which and arranging it such that you only have a max of 5 categories. The positional keys are also important if different characters in a game have completely different actions so that they can all be learned in a similar way.

Personally when I played with it, it felt awkward at first but I can see how it would be addicting. I liked how once I got used to it, it could be very easy to do different actions, very little thought to pressing your thumb and ring finger together. This also could be nice for people that have issues with their wrists. Since there is no object to press against, you can make sure your wrist is straight. On the other hand, if you’re lazy, you still might end out bending your wrists when you move your fingers which would prove to be just as bad as a keyboard.

Overall I think if you play a lot of PC games you should definitely give this a try. This may turn out to be the controller of the future. If they added in some motion sensors then they wouldn’t even need a mouse at all.

WildCharge Inc. manufactures small electronics charging solutions. The most exciting of these products are their “wire-free” chargers. I just got my hands on one, and I found them to be effective, convenient, and much better than dealing with one of those wall-warts.

The charging system comes in two parts. The first, the WildCharger Pad, plugs into a wall like any other charging base station. The pad is a simple, flat surface that you lay your device on. There are no sliding parts, no grooves to line up, no orientation to match “" you just toss your device onto the pad and it automatically starts charging. I tried placing my iPhone in many different directions and playing around with it, but I was unable to find a orientation separate from being of the pad where the WildCharger failed to charge.

The trick, which the engineers took no effort to hide, is the twelve strips of metal in the pad that generate a potential. The second component to the system is the case you attach to your device. The iPhone case I tested has metal contacts on the back of the case in a “T”-shape. They were spaced out in just the right proportions that at least one of them would connect to a different strip of metal on the pad, completing a circuit, and generating the charge for the device. Because the pad is larger than your devide, you can also cram as many devices on the pad as you want.

So while the WildCharger Pad is technically wireless, it still requires metal contacts to transmit the power. This means that you couldn’t put something over the pad and expect it to charge. Also, should the contacts on the case ever become oxidized, it will become unable to charge.

WildCharger's universal adaptor can let you charge just about any device.

Even with these possible limitations, the technology is promising. ‚ The company is currently developing laptop chargers. Looking even further into the future, the company hopes to put all of these devices in cafes, restaurants, and bars, eliminating the need to fight over outlets. We’ll just hope no one spills something on them. That would probably be bad.

While I used the iPhone case, the company sells cases for the iPod Touch and Blackberrys, as well as generic adapter to most phones or other devices. The case is rubber which covers the phone while also preventing scratches and other damage to the phone. The case isn’t too difficult to remove, which is a good thing since in order to charge your iPhone or iPod Touch, the WildCharger has to be plugged into the dock port on the phone, preventing you from syncing with your computer while the skin is on the case. Though many other skins cover or otherwise obscure the port, it’s still is a hassle to have to take it off anytime you want to sync your device.

Overall, I think the WildCharge is a great product, and if the WildCharger pads start to show up at my local Starbucks, we certainly wouldn’t complain. At this point, you just have to ask yourself how much the convenience of not having to charge your device with a wire is worth to you.

Much like “The Shining” before it, “Orphan” is one of those horror movies that really messes with your head by playing on our perceptions of innocence and trust, only in this case instead of a loving, trustworthy father who goes batshit insane, it’s the sweet, innocent little girl that no one would suspect could be so evil.

“Orphan” is surprisingly entertaining, with plenty of suspense to get you on the edge of your seat, as well as shocks and frights to make you jump for cover. Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) is creepy enough to give us nightmares for a few nights to come at least.

Torn apart by the recent loss of their baby, John (Peter Sarsgaard) and Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga) decide to adopt to fill the void. When they encounter the seemingly special, angelic Esther at the orphanage, it looks to be a perfect match. However, as the movie’s tag line goes, “there’s something wrong with Esther” and when they bring their little bundle of joy home, things begin to change.

Farmiga portrays Kate brilliantly, displaying enough craziness to hint at her troubled past, and she shines in this film, especially when supported by the three children. Sarsgaard, on the other hand, plays an unconvincing John, though to be fair he is just playing the role he was given. Throughout the film, John is presented with the choice of who to believe as strange things keep happening, and Esther’s false innocence gets the best of him every time, despite some situations that make the viewer wonder how he could be so myopic. Of course, one must suspend disbelief for a movie of this nature, but one still wants believable characters.

Without doubt, the toughest role, and best filled, was that of Fuhrman’s Esther. Switching between being the perfect little Victorian princess to the brilliant yet deranged monster is done with an impressive talent for someone of her age, complemented by the old-fashioned clothes she wears. The mannerisms and the way she speaks, and even the way that she carries herself, show off the abilities of this young actress, and the lack of sound and use of subtitles at times really draws you into her world as a deaf child.

Once again referring to that old classic, the setting of the story also reminds one of “The Shining.” It’s winter time, in a house that’s off the beaten path, which gives a sense of seclusion and entrapment. The film doesn’t simply rely on blood and gore or cheap tricks to achieve its thrills. It starts building suspense and momentum early on, slowly revealing more of the story, and the histories, of both Esther and the mother.

If you’re up for a good horror movie, this is definitely one to check out, and it has something for fans of all sub-genres. It may not be a masterpiece, but it’s worth the cash to get the adrenaline pumping, especially if you’re one of those people who enjoys a sleepless night or two. If you’re thinking of adopting a child any time soon, though, you may want to hold off.

(Blast doesn’t have anything against orphans in general, just this one.)

With the success of music controllers such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero, it’s no surprise that sports would start to get in on the peripheral action. Activision has decided to work with Tony Hawk to create a skateboard controller for the latest game from the skateboarding deity. The controller looks like a slightly thicker skateboard with no wheels. It uses accelerometers to determine the position of the board compared to the ground, and infrared sensors on each side, the front and back. The accelerometers detect when you turn the board or when you lift the front or back. The IR sensors detect when you move your foot next to the board, such as when you kick. These sensors can detect all the motions in the game, so there is no need for a regular controller.

The controller feels a little strange at first; the board is kind of rounded on the bottom allowing it to tilt left and right, which you don’t get just from standing on a real skateboard. You can jump the skateboard by quickly moving the skateboard’s front upward. While the skateboard is in the air, you can tilt the board left or right to flip it in flight. The “Ride” as this new controller is called, can do everything a traditional controller was able to do, mostly because the controls are context sensitive. The‚ accelerometers will even detect if the Ride has been spun around. This allows you to even do 180s and 360s.

In the demo they showed off, the player has to kick beside the board to get started, then lean forward and backwards to direct the board down the path. The game will then ask you to do a “manual,” which is raising the front of the board slightly; all I had to do was lean on the back of the board a little. Then it goes up a ramp, and you need to get the board to jump. This was accomplished by pressing on the back a bit to make it go up at just the right spot. After that you ride by a railing that you can jump up onto; like the earlier jump, just pushing on the back will launch you into the air and balance you on the rail. This part really is cool for the new controller, since you need to actually balance by leaning, rather than using an analog stick or button presses.

This looks like it’ll be another good example of getting up and truly interacting with a game. I like how you don’t have to ever pick up the regular controller at all once you start, much like in the aforementioned music titles. To go through the menu you can just move the Skate board around to navigate it. If the game is as good as it looked from the five minute demo, and offers enough of a challenge, and enough variance, this should help revitalize the Tony Hawk game brand.

PopCap is bringing some of their more popular titles to the Nintendo DS, which makes sense given its handheld nature and the short burst nature of puzzle titles. After already releasing Mystery P.I.: Portrait of a Thief late last year for the system, they have now released one of their most addictive puzzlers, Peggle, as Peggle Dual shot.

The game will let the player use either the stylus or buttons to control the game. Each option has its benefits. The stylus is easy to point at the screen and has a nifty zoom feature new to the DS version of Peggle. If you press down on a spot for an extended period of time the screen will zoom into that spot, allowing you to make a better decision about your next shot of the ball.

Using the buttons to control, you can speed up time to help you get the shots you want. Use the directional pad to move left and right, or use the shoulder buttons to aim around. This is more accurate than the normal stylus mode, though it doesn’t zoom in–usually don’t need to zoom in since you can tap the button to see all possible shooting locations.

PopCap decided to use the bottom screen for all the game play and only use the top screen for the menus and graphics of the currently selected Master. This is kind of unfortunate as it would be nice to have the extra space of the top screen, but since the levels were designed for a computer monitor anyways it works for the original levels.

The actual game play is the same as the PC versions of Peggle. You shoot a ball at pegs, trying to get rid of all the orange ones. They did include both Peggle and its sequel Peggle Nights in the game, which is a pretty good deal and explains the title. It does seem to lack the final Master of Peggle Nights, though.

Peggle Dual Shot has a few new additions to the original versions. First, there is a new underground mode added. When you get the purple points peg it now keeps track. After hitting four of them, the free ball bucket disappears and you go into the underground mode when your ball falls off the screen. The underground mode looks more like a pinball machine with bumpers all over the screen and jewels to collect. When you hit the action button it makes all the bumpers hit the ball, and you can hit the button to move the flippers. The player uses the bumpers to try to collect as many jewels as possible before the ball falls through both screens. The underground is neat in that it uses both the top and the bottom screen.‚  If you collect enough jewels your score will increase during the final extreme fever scoring. They will also get you free balls if you collect enough of them.

The game allows you to send a demo to another DS, and even encourages this by using it as one of the ways to unlock the extra levels in the game. There are 10 extra levels beyond the original levels of Peggle and the Peggle Nights levels. These are levels created specifically for the DS version of Peggle.

One of my few complaints with this game is that when you zoom in, the graphics take a hit, which they do not do on the PC version of the game. Things start to look pixilated, which isn’t a deal breaker by any means but it’s something you notice. The graphics mostly look like the PC version otherwise.

Overall, if you’re a fan of Peggle and want to be able to play the game on the go, Peggle Dual Shot is for you. If you have never experienced Peggle before, you’re getting a great deal by having two PC games packaged on one DS cartridge along with new levels and stylus play, if you so choose, and trust me, you want to play Peggle, as it’s one of the most addicting puzzlers out there on the market.

Docking stations are nice if you use the laptop primarily at one location or have lots of things to plug into it that don’t move — input devices, webcam, monitor. This leaves the BookEndz with a good chance to market third party docking stations. This is a hard thing for the company to manufacture since the laptops don’t just have a docking port like most laptops that have first party docking stations. They are left with plugging into the external ports and then just moving them to the outside their device.

BookEndz still have some options that users can work with, though. With their MacBook docking station, they have a USB hub inside, so you can have 6 devices plugged in, while the MacBook only has two USB ports on the side.

The docking station has all the original laptop ports plus the mini DVI is converted to either a DVI or a VGA. You can only use one at a time. If you plug in both only the VGA is recognized.

The BookEndz also use a sliding switch on the side to plug in the speaker/headphone port. This is important since the MacBook enables the port based on a sensor that detects something plugged into the port. When the headphones or speakers are plugged in the laptops speakers are disabled.

The switch on the Bookendz unit I was given was a very sticky. It is hard to move from plugged in and unplugged. This will loosen over time with usage. The company said that the one I was sent may be an early model and the new ones are looser and easier to switch to plugged in, or unplugged. They do make it easy enough to just plug everything in at once.

I like that when I use a BookEndz I can go from standard laptop to having a big monitor, and normal keyboard. Using a USB video card, it’s possible for a Macbook to now have two large monitors plugged in, and then it’s easy take it away when you need to go.

One part that makes it hard with the newer Apple laptops is the much toted power plug. Apple does not appear to let any third party companies make Mag-Safe adapters. BookEndz have a space for the original power bricks to be used. This could have been done better. They seemed to have decided to make it easy for the user to unplug the power brick to take with the laptop, instead of leaving the power brick in the docking station. This means every time you go to unplug the docking station, not only do you unplug the docking station, but also the power adapter. This also requires sitting the docking station on top of the wire so it will all sit flat. I think they should have made the docking station hold the power adapters more snugly. That way you can just plug everything in at once.

The design of the plastic casing is fairly smooth and flowing like the MacBooks, but the devices have touches here and there that look more hobbyist.

Overall I think it’s a very good and useful product for what it does. I think it beats just plugging in each port separately every time I get to work. For what they had to work with I think they did a great job. I just wish Apple thought of this sooner.

By the way: Because of a reporting error, we removed the line “Apple hasn’t ever produced a docking station for their laptops.” It was incorrect.

PopCap Games is now porting their best selling PC titles to the Nintendo DS. Their first attempt is a game that fits the system perfectly, as it is a search-and-find title that utilizes the touch screen and stylus interface. The game is all about being given a picture and finding hidden objects in the picture; this means that while the top screen shows a zoomed out view of the area, and the up to ten objects you are currently looking for, the bottom screen is used to find those objects.

The game has 18 locations to look for objects in. There are 20 levels, and for each level there are a few locations where you need to find up to 10 objects. When you find all 10 objects you go to another location until you find all the objects for that level. Once you find all the objects for a level you get to play a mini-game to finish the level. The mini-games consist of Memory Match, Jigsaw Puzzle, Tile rotate, Mah-Jongg Match, and Word Puzzle.

The search-and-find locations allow the player to move the zoom window around with the directional pad, the a/b/x/y pad, or using the stylus. If you click and drag you can move the screen around as well. To find an object, click on the screen where the object is. This mimics the use of a mouse on a computer, though with the stylus you can press directly on the area. The objects are sometimes small though, so they can be hard to find.‚  Some of them will also be hidden as decoration in other objects; for example, you need to find an ear, but the ear is found as an etching in a tree, or the star you are looking for is a decorative part of a chair.

The difficulty increases as the game progresses. Initially, umbrellas are referred to as “umbrellas” , then are labeled as “parasols.” Another example is “horse shoes” become “lucky shoes” or “esquire shoes.” They also will say find two eyes and one of them might be an eye ball, where the other one is the word “eye” painted on the wall.

The game does offer one helping part to the search. There is a hint button at the bottom that will move the screen so that an object is on the screen. Part of the screen will also shine, helping you zoom in on the object. If you have multiple objects left to find you never know which one it will focus in on, so it’s probably better to find all of the objects you can first, in order to avoid pointing you towards objects you already knew of. Don’t spam the hint button though, as the game penalizes you for its use, and has a delay set up in between uses.

The game does get a little tedious because of the limited number of locations. Once you’ve been to a location more than once you’ll start to remember where some objects are, which makes it easier to search there again. This also makes it easier when they change the names, because the player has seen the objects before and can remember what they found before and realize the new name. There are nearly 40 objects in every location though, so it’s still likely to have at least one new object each time you go to that location. Though with 10 objects per level it’s also likely you will see ones you’ve found before.

After the levels, you play a mini-game. These play out another portion of the story, and are designed somewhat like boss levels. They switch things up in these mini-game portions sometimes though; in Mah-Jongg or Memory, you will have to match up objects based on on association or similarities instead of just exact matches.

I thought the game was a lot of fun, and think it works better as a DS game than as a PC game. I was fairly addicted to it until I finished it, which goes to show how well a simple concept can work sometimes. My most significant complaint is that the game’s storyline was not that great, though it’s to be expected in this type of game as well. Beyond that, the actual gameplay is fun, so fans of the genre should give this game a look.

Nintendo made a great console with the Wii, but one major mistake made was that the Wiimotes run on two standard AA batteries. This means that they require replacing on a regular basis. It’s a pain if they die in the middle of a game,‚ creating much frustration if there are no batteries to replace them with. For a while I used rechargeable AA batteries but that still requires swapping them each time they die.

There have been multiple companies that have come out with different battery pack solutions to deal with this problem. The thing that they all fail at is working with Nintendo, or third party, “Wii condoms” (the unofficial name for the silicon shells people put on their Wiimotes). In all, newer games Nintendo recommends you use a Wii condom. They have swapped the graphics of the Wiimotes in game to show using their condom. With most charging stations on the market, you have to take the Wii condom off to charge the Wiimotes. This means you either don’t use the Wii condom at all, or you end up forgetting to charge them, and get dead batteries.

Teknocreations has come out with a solution that solves both of these issues. The InCharge uses the same technology that is in some electric toothbrushes. It’s the same technology that MIT was advertising recently to run a light bulb wirelessly across the room. This is same technology that makes electric magnets possible. Surprisingly, it’s actually just basic high school physics behind it. It’s not used regularly because the amount of electricity lost using this method is many times greater than the amount used.

Physics says that a changing electric current will create a magnetic current. An electric magnet just is a wire wrapped around a metal rod so it moves around in the same direction creating a fixed magnetic field. The interesting and important part of this is that the reverse holds true too: a changing magnet field will cause an electric current.

The InCharge uses this idea to have an electric magnet create currents in the base station that cause an electric charge in the batteries. This is not the most efficient way to charge your Wii batteries since electricity is being wasted converting from electrical to magnetic, then back to electrical. Luckily, the batteries in the Wiimotes are small enough that the amount of energy that is required to charge them this way as opposed to the metal contact methods won’t be noticed by most people. To put in perspective, the power adapters for most of your electronics waste almost as much converting from 110 volts to the voltage the device uses.

The batteries held up well under my tests, though they did have the same problems of all other Lithium batteries. If left unused for any length of time they will slowly lose their charge, but only over long periods of time. This would mostly account for the discrepancy that they claimed 24 hours of charge time. I only managed to get a little more than 12 hours over a two-week period. This should be still more than enough when you consider that you should place the Wiimotes back on their charge station when not in use. So the biggest question on battery life is how long you will sit playing the Wii in one sitting, since the charger is able to easily charge them back up for you over night.

I did find that the meter on the Wii wasn’t accurate on these batteries though. The meter seemed to work fine on other batteries I’ve tested in the past. On the InCharge, the Wii still said half charge when they started to run out of power, and shutoff while playing games. So if you don’t place the remotes on their base station, you shouldn’t trust this meter.

The big benefit though is the fact that now you can leave your Wiimotes in their Wii condoms while charging. I tried a couple different Wii condoms to see that they each kept the Wiimote close enough to charge. The Wiimotes will still charge as long as they are within about one centimeter away from the base station. So now you can have different colored Wii condoms to tell your Wiimotes apart and still use a battery pack to charge them.

The other nice thing for families with small kids is the contacts are no longer exposed so you can’t get any gunk on them stopping the batteries from charging. Though personally the worst I’ve ever had from the contacts is a little rust that can be sandpapered off, it’s still nice to have one less thing to worry about.

One concern I’d raise about this is that the InCharge, because it uses a magnetic field, is like a microwave oven. I wouldn’t sit it next to your computer, or any electronics. Teknocreations says that the magnetic radiation isn’t harmful, but a computer too close may still have negative side effects.

Overall, I think the InCharge is a great device. It still has the trouble that if you have‚ three or‚ four people in your family it requires two InCharges since they only charge two Wiimotes each. On the other hand, if you only have two people playing the Wii, which seems more common, there will be no issue‚ and you won’t have extra wasted parts.

REDMOND, Wash. — Unlike most of the rest of the country, Washington state, the party lines aren’t so clear, and the presidential race is only one of the things on people’s minds.

The election here is focused mostly on who will be the next governor. The last election came down to a matter of 133 votes, after 3 recounts and a couple bags of missing ballots showing up mysteriously at the last minute.

The race is a rematch between Democrat Chris Gregoire and Republican challenger Dino Rossi.

First term Governor Gregoire served three terms as state attorney general, starting in 1992. Rossi served in the state senate for seven years.

The real issues under debate are about who will do a better job in office, not who will do it the “right” way. The candidates both claim they will lower taxes and keep a balanced budget. Gregoire claims she has money set aside for this, Rossi claims he can spend the budget better. Both of the candidates are claiming to want to fix roads here in the Seattle area.

Seattle has problems with roads. There is a lake between the city of Seattle, and the”East Side.” There are only two bridges to get across. The Route 90 bridge is in decent condition, but the 520 seems like it could fall apart at any time.

We also have a stretch of road in Seattle similar to the old 93 going‚ above Boston. Unlike Boston though, Seattle has Earthquakes. The last one damaged this road and everyone believes it won’t last another one.

So the big question is who can relieve congestion on the roads, and fix the broken roads. Who will keep taxes at a minimum to accomplish all this.

While the rest of the nation is being inundated with ads for McCain or Obama, Washington is mostly getting ads for or against Gregoire and Rossi. If you turn TV on for 10 minutes you will see at least one ad for and against each candidate. It also gets interesting when you have, say, one ad against Rossi saying he opposes stem cell research followed by one from Rossi saying he supports stem cell research.

With the difference last time being just 150 voters it’s anyone’s guess who will win this time around.

Massachusetts native and computer engineer Bradley Ouellette recently relocated to Washington.

These two products are essentially the same, even though they don’t look it and the PlayStation 3 version uses the original internal battery, and 360 version uses a Nyko replacement battery. They’re both meant to give you an externalized recharge of your controllers.

I currently have Nyko’s Wii Charge Station, and the PS3 and 360 charge stations all sitting next to each other on a shelf.

The 360 and PS3 controllers can each be charged using USB, or with the 360 by removing the battery and sticking it in a separate charge station. The Nyko charge stations are nice because you can basically just store your controllers on them when they aren’t being used.

This is a good place to use Lithium Ion batteries. Even if there’s still some juice left, you can recharge them on the fly, as opposed to older technologies that do better if you let them completely die before charging them.‚  This makes the life of the battery less important since you will have it charging when your not playing, and as long as you don’t do a marathon gaming session the battery will never run out on you.

The problem that Nyko had to deal with when designing the Charge base was figuring out how to charge conveniently the PS3 and the 360 controllers, which weren’t designed with a simple plug in interface. With the 360 they just were able to add their own batteries with convenient contacts for charging, much like the Wii base.

The PS3 since it has a non-removable battery required them to be more creative. They came up with an interesting solution of placing an adapter on the USB port of the PS3, but this method adds a small part to their product that can be easily lost.

My main disappointment with the Charge Base, specifically with the PS3 version, was that it’s not compatible with Nyko’s owns Zero controller. If it was a different company’s part then I wouldn’t be
surprised, but I would have expected Nyko to make sure it works with their own controller, which they were heavily encouraging people to buy when it hit the market as the first rumble controller for the PS3. Unfortunately though the adapters don’t fit on the Zero, so it must still be charged by plugging the controller into a USB port.

Overall, if you use official controllers for your game systems either Nyko Charge Base is a great accessory, especially the PS3 one since the PS3 turns off its USB ports when it’s off, (the time when I
would expect most people to charge their controllers.)

My only real big complaint was that it doesn’t support their own controller.

Have you ever wanted to take Guitar Hero with you when you left your house? Maybe play it on an airplane?

With Guitar Hero On Tour, Activision is attempting to bring the Guitar Hero franchise to the Nintendo DS using a touchscreen interface and a guitar pick stylus teaming up with a new, sometimes awkward fret adapter that plugs into the DS’ Gameboy Advance slot.

The guitar fret adapter has a strap to attach it to your wrist so that it will hold the DS to you while you pick and strum away. The strap was one of the first things I had trouble with. It’s supposed to keep your DS steady so you don’t it while trying to play the guitar, allowing you more freedom for this portable device. Unfortunately, this puts off the stress and strain of any movement on the GBA connector. This would be fine with the original Game Boy, for instance,‚ that had a piece of plastic to stop the cartridge from being removed while the game was on. But here, there is nothing but the tight connection to hold the GBA cartridges in.

This means the fret adapter flies out of the unit, even sometimes during slight movements. This of course freezes the system and requires you to reset it and start over, which is especially annoying if
you are doing well.

The design of the controller also forces the player to hold it at an awkward angle, since you need to see the upper display to know what to play.‚  When I tried to move the DS around like the game suggests, holding it at different angles, it‚ became hard to see the screen.

The DS is also an added weight in the user’s palm that can make pressing the strum keys feel awkward.

Carpel tunnel anyone?

The design of the game and layout also could use some work. The creators obviously wanted to emulte the feel of the Original Guitar Hero Games, but the DS doesn’t really have the screen real estate to do what they attempted to do. They have the keys coming down like the other Guitar Hero games, with the virtual actors on stage behind. The problem with this is that the lower screen is entirely taken up with the strings that you need to strum. This leaves one screen to read what keys to press, and see the background movements. And, with the angle at which the notes‚ move across the screen, there is very little time between the player starting to see a key and having to press it. This is also made
awkward, again,‚ by the angle at which the DS is positioned when it’s attached to the user’s wrist.

Putting the issues of a first generation niche game aside,‚ it is still cool‚ to be able to play‚ Guitar Hero anywhere now, and the future versions will hopefully improve on some of these problems.‚ 

Personally, I‚ would like to‚ see a more minimalist display on the top screen, with just the keys you need to play, allowing them to be bigger and easier to see. Seeing the virtual character on stage isn’t needed for a DS game. Guitar Hero On Tour should model itself on many of the best DS games, which use minimalistic graphics.

Rock star wannabes everywhere should look forward to the next version that will hopefully fix these problems.

But for now, there are some.

With elections coming up CodeWeavers is trying to make sure people don’t forget about them amidst all the hoopla.

CodeWeavers is a Windows emulation tool that lets users run W32 applications in Linux or MAC platforms.

The challenge is that if President Bush can achieve any of their goals before leaving office the company will give away a free copy of their software to anyone who wants one for 24 hours. The goals are:

Reduce the Price of Gas: “Gas costs about $3.79 a gallon in the Twin Cities, (Minn.) a full buck more than this time last year. If the average price here drops below $2.79 per gallon, this goal is met.”

Reduce the Price of Food: “With the rise of fuel prices has come a similar rise in food prices. A gallon of milk is about $5 these days. It was $3.50 a year ago. If the average price of a gallon of milk comes down to $3.50 gallon in the Twin Cities metro, this goal is met.”

Create More Jobs: “We started the year with 138,002,000 people in the U.S. working non-farm jobs. Since then, total non-farm employment has decreased by 366,000. If so much as a single job can be created this calendar year – meaning if employment can be at least 138,002,001, this goal is met.”

Rejuvenate the Housing Market: “Median home values in the Twin Cities have fallen 12 percent year over year – from $233,000 to $205,000. If that median returns to $233,000, this goal is met.”

Bring Osama Bin-Laden to Justice: “Every American would like to see Osama Bin-Laden captured or terminated. We won’t be picky about how President Bush gets him. If it happens, this goal is met.”

CodeWeavers is a virtualization software company with a product similar to VMware, Parallels or Microsoft’s Virtual PC/HyperVisor. It’s based on the open source Wine application for Linux, but CodeWeavers is released for Linux and Mac OSX.

Code Weavers emulates the Win32 API for other systems, not the entire system. This tends to leave them with less compatibility since they may have missed part of the spec, but results in much greater speeds. The speeds of CodeWeavers games or apps tend to be closer to the speeds of the native applications, since they don’t actually emulate the system they basically are writing the windows api’s for other systems.

More information on the details of the challenge can be read at, http://lameduck.codeweavers.com/

Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys, which was released in April, is a video game designed to look like a comic book, with scenes shown as comic frames with text bubbles for speech.

It plays like a standard 2D platformer, Zombies are the heroes battling villains in the form of alien brains that have come to invade Earth.

Gamers play as three zombies, each with his or her own skills and talents as well as unique super powers. The toughest thing about how to play the game is figuring all the moves each character has.

The first zombie, Finnigan “Fins” Magee has several tentacles on his back, which allow him to climb up the side of a wall, or to hang from ropes crossing the area. A typical “Fins” move is to duck down and shoot tentacles in the three directions up, left and right, attacking anything it hits — useful for getting brains that fly above him. His super power is the ability to vomit burning acid after ingesting spicy food, which can melt through metal grates and light objects on fire.

The second character Lori “Lefty” Lopez, can extend her arm to reach areas that are too far for a normal character to jump. This ability allows her to climb stair-like areas and grab ledges when she falls. Her supper power is a Rivot gun, which is limited in that it will only shoot forward or backward and at the same height.

The last Teenage Zombie is Zack “Half-Pipe” Boyd, who moves around on his skate board and attacks enemies by flinging his board out. His mode of transportation allows him to move down inclines really fast and jump over ramps, and also to squeeze through tight holes the others wouldn’t fit into. His super power is big wheels for his skateboard, which allow him to roll over otherwise deadly traps, and mow down the enemies as he goes along.

The game lets players switch between the zombies at nearly any time as long as they are in a non-action state. This means you can’t be hanging from a wall as Fins and switch to Lefty to reach something.

The super powers come in the form of items that you pick up and get one use out of.

Teenage Zombies also contains mini-games throughout, which can be played for as long as you want. Ths mini-games use the touch features of the DS more than the regular game. They allow the player to move logs around to free brains for the zombies to eat or click on bombs and icons to perform manuvers.

Overall, Teenage Zombies is a fun little platformer. The zombies and the comic book style
are interesting, but it gets old after a while.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Ignition Entertainment
Developer: InLight Entertainment
Platform: Nintendo DS
Genre: Adventure
Players: Single player
Launch Date: April 15, 2008

Playability: 4 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Sound: 4 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 3 out of 5 stars
Overall: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Patapon takes a real-time strategy game, but instead of using a menu to select the actions of your characters, you tell them what to do by beating out a drum pattern.

There are different patterns to tell your “Patapons” to do different actions. Square Square Square Circle is the command to move forward, whereas Circle Circle Square Circle is the command to attack.

It sounds much easier than it is. There is a background beat going on in the game, and you need to keep the pace. You must hit the drums to that beat, and then allow the Patapon’s to repeat the command to you as they do the action. If you just hit lots of buttons than it’s not recognized as a command. Hitting them to fast or two slow so they are off beat will make your Patapon stumble, and you have to start over.

If you do 10 commands right in a row you go into Fever mode. In fever mode your Patapon all get stronger. This unlocks special bonuses called “miracles.” You need to stay in fever mode sometimes or else your Patapon will die when a miracle ends.

Patapon takes the story of a race of creatures that are in a small isolated area surrounded by enemies and almost surely going to die soon.

There is a legend of a great deity that once led them to power and “IT” at Earthend. You become the deity leading the Patapons through your drumming on different keys on your PSP.

The game is very precise on the beats and it’s very easy to miss a command, and lose the combo by just missing the beat by a little amount. Issuing the wrong command can sometimes be deadly.

Luckily most of the time if your Patapon die then they drop a helmet that you can pick up and then restore them to life when you get back to town.

Some enemies will eat your Patapons, helmet and all. If you fail to grab it in time, the Patapon is gone forever. With as few Pataon as you have in the game you don’t want to lose any of them. You can create more Patapon by hunting for meat and special items, and money known as K-Ching. All three of these are needed to create a new Patapon.

When you create a Patapon the types of material used will influence the abilities of the Patapon. If you use better materials the Patapon will be stronger, or faster, or have a higher defense. You’ll need to collect all kinds of materials though to create the different types of Patapon you want. There is also a certain amount of strategy to creating your army. When you go into battle you can only use three types, and certain types are better for different things. Some are strong for hunting, but weak in a battle, others are strong at battle, but weak at hunting.

Hunting can be annoying, as you need meat and K-Ching to create new Patapons. The hunting levels are pretty much the same, you walk across the screen trying to kill as many birds or boars as you can before they run away. This can get monotonous, as you’ll need a lot of K-Ching for creating some Patapon, and you need the meat to create them. So every so often you just have to go on a bunch of hunting missions to then go back to the regular game.

The graphics in the game are fairly simple, but they fit the style and make it amusing.

The Patapon are basically huge eye’s with legs and arms. The eye is also important because it will change as a status symbol. The eyes look towards the drumming beat as you drum, and they will turn angry when they are within attacking range of an enemy. The music in the game is a lot of fun, but definitely detracts from the portable nature of the game. You need to play with the beat meaning that outside influences can mess you up, and even kill you. If something distracts you, or you can’t hear the music for a second you will likely lose your concentration and the beat of the game. Also if something moves you, or bumps you or such you might hit too early or too late. This game seems to be better for sitting at home, or with headphones waiting somewhere. I wouldn’t recommend for playing while your walking around, or even on bus or train could be hard.

Overall, the game is a lot of fun, and for the cost of the game well worth it.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Developer: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platform: PSP
Genre: Strategy
Players: Single player
Launch Date: February 26, 2008

Playability: 4 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Sound: 5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Were you a fan of M. C. Escher’s work? Ever wondered what it would be like to be in a world where the physics of Escher’s worlds actually work?

Echo Chrome looks at a world like ours but as if what we see from the 2D view affects the three dimensional world. Objects fall straight down or jump straight up the screen regardless of what direction that is in the actual world. If you can’t see a hole, it doesn’t exist. If two objects look like they’re connected, they are.

The player can’t directly control the character, only pause their movement. The only control in the game is to change the view of the world, moving so that two platforms appear connected to allow the character to walk from one to the other. If you move a hole behind another object the character will walk over the hole as if it doesn’t exist. If your character walks off a hole, it will fall straight down, just like an Escher painting. Sometimes the character will actually fall upwards if you can make a higher up level object appear below it.

The game has very simple graphics, just simple blocks rectangles in different sizes.  There is also the starting point for the character, and up to five waypoints — known as “Echos” — to follow to the finish. The object is to finish through all the waypoints in the shortest time possible.

There are also holes and jump pads. These are just circles on the top of rectangles. If the circle is black it’s a hole. If it’s white, it’s a jump pad. The game is very simple in it’s rules but some of the levels get very complex. Once you finish the standard levels included in the game, you can start playing the player added levels.

The game includes an editor. Since the physics of the game and the graphics are very simple, it’s easy to add your own levels. Simply move blocks around to make your platforms, and then add objects like Echos, jump pads and holes. Once your level is complete, the game asks you to play through it to show that ti’s completable. Then you save it and share it. The game’s developers pick the best user content and promote it periodically.

I highly recommend the game. It’s easy to learn but difficult to master. It’s subtle, casual and addictive. Maybe brush up on your geometry?

Quick hits:

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Developer: JapanStudio
Platform: PlayStation 3
Genre: Puzzle
Players: Single player
Launch Date: May 1, 2008

Playability: 5 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Sound: 3 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 3 out of 5 stars
Overall: 5 out of 5 stars Editor’s choice

Nyko beat Sony to the punch in the US with a Wireless Sixaxis controller that also supports rumble.

The controller has metal on the top and plastic for the rest of the body. The Metal is touted as a way to keep your hands less sweaty, and cooler. The bad thing about the metal is when you first pick up the
controller, it feels cold. The metal is fine once you’ve had it in your hand for a while.

The battery life on the Nyko is great. The Controller comes with a USB cable for charging and a 2xAA battery holder in case you forget to charge the controller. Remember, the PS3 can’t charge the zero when the it’s turned off.

One serious issue with the Zero is that it uses a USB adapter to communicate with the PS3. It is wireless, but it still requires a dongle. The dongle — like most wireless devices — needs to be synced with the controller. Unlike the Sony wireless controllers the controller sync information can not be stored on the PS3 itself. This means that sometimes, when it loses connection, you have to walk over to the PS3 and press the sync button on the dongle. Most of the time though, it only takes a press on center button of the controller to reconnect them. The USB dongle also means that the Zero is unable to turn the PS3 on, since there is no power to the USB ports when the PS3 is turned off.

The controller is heavier than the Sony SixAxis, or the Dual Shock PS2 controller. Though the weight isn’t uncomfortably heavy. The added weight it expected, as the Zero has metal as part of the body, a battery, and motors for rumble.

The vibration works just as you would expect. Many games, even older ones, come with support for rumble already. It’s like a new dimension on your old games. The Zero doesn’t shake as much as the Dual Shock
did, but that is likely to conserve the battery life of the controller.

The controller uses a color-coded number to identify itself and back-lit bottons. Those would be helpful for somepeople if they actually look at the buttons. I think we’re past that at this stage of our gaming development.

The best thing about the SixAxis controll in the Zero is that there really isn’t much to say about it. It simply just works. It feels and reacts just as the original PS3 controller. Despite the need for a dongle, it works great. If you need an extra controller or want to do some vibrating, give the Zero a try.

4 out of 5 stars 

The Ant Commandos announced that they are releasing a PlayStation 2 to PlayStation 3 adapter that is 100 percent compatibly with all game controllers, claiming you can use your PS2 guitars with both Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3.

At $19.99, it’s cheaper than buying a new guitar for either game, and it works!

If you already have some PS2 controllers, then get this to give them more life. Many people bought PS2 controllers for games and haven’t been able to use them with their PS3. The universal adapter works with all features on the controllers, even ones the other adapters are known to have trouble with. TAC is guaranteeing 100% compatibility with all Guitar Hero 3 or Rock Band features.

What we don’t know yet, is if the adapter works with things like dance pads and drums.

Here’s what I’ve been able to gather so far on the soon-to-be-released Rock Band for the Wii.

As for Wii Connectivity, there will no online play on the Wii. With the current dearth of support for online play on the Wii, this isn’t surprising.

Even though Nintendo tried to push Wii as an online system, except for Virtual Console games and Wii Ware, this  seems to be lagging way behind.

The will also be no DLC, since Nintendo hasn’t used the Wii store for DLC for games yet. This is a shame but isn’t surprising either.

The Wii version of Rock Band will be offering five extra songs to make up for these lacking features. It is still unannounced which five extra songs they will be though.

The Wii’s drums have been rebranded for the Wii, making them white.

None of these accessories will require a Wii Mote to work. This is opposed to the Guitar Hero 3 Guitars that require a Wii-Mote plugged into them.  The guitars are similar to the PS3/PS2. This should make the Rock Band for the Wii a great deal for anyone that only has a Wii. or if the Wii is more convenient for family playing, or with local friends.

If you have a PS3, or 360 though you may still want to get one of those for the downloadable extras.

One of the biggest new games for the PlayStation 3, Heavenly Sword tells the story of Nariko who is supposed to inherit the protection of a special sword kept in their clan. The sword is powerful, but it takes the life of the owner.

The clan believes that a male will be born to wield the sword, but Nariko is born, to the disappointment of her father. The story starts with Nariko fighting the final battle with the Heavenly Sword. She is defeating all the enemies when the sword overtakes her, and the game stars with her recalling the previous five days.

Nariko’s clan is being assaulted by King Bohan’s armies, who seek Heavenly Sword themselves. The game switches between melee style and ranged attacks after that. When your in ranged attacks, you can use a system called “afterthought” to guide the projectile. This uses the motion sensor of the Sixaxis controller. The afterthought is often necessary to hit a particular target. The game doesn’t let you zoom in on targets, so you shoot in the general direction, and the afterthought does the rest.

When in afterthought mode, you are looking at the world from the view of the projectile, so just guide it to where you want to hit. It isn’t perfect control — it seems more like nudging the projectile in the direction you want to go in. It is continuous control though, so if you push it too high, just push it back down. Once you get used to it, the game allows great precision for hitting the target.

The melee part of the game is a hack and slash where you just need to kill all the enemy’s coming at you. There are combos that can be used, and many enemies will come at you at once.

The graphics in the game are phenomenal. It feels like watching a movie. The sound effects are also top notch making the realism of the game great.

Overall the game is very flashy, it looks really good. I’d say it was only about average playability though. It looks great, but the shooting parts are annoying, and the fighting parts get boring. It’s also a very short game. Heavenly Sword is one of the best-looking and best-sounding PlayStation 3 games, but it’s still not IT.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Sony
Developer: Ninja Theory
Platform: PlayStation 3
Genre: Action/Adventure
Players: 1

Playability: 3 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 4 out of 5 stars
Sound: 5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 5 out of 5 stars
Overall: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Launch Date: September 12, 2007

The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night, starts the game off with a recap from the last game, where Spyro defeated the evil dragon Cynder. After Spyro defeated Cynder, she turned into a little dragon, just like Spyro. When Spyro saw that she was like him, he had to save her from the dark power. He escapes with her and brings her back to his castle.

The first level of this game is his escape with Cynder. It’s supposed to be escaping a nightmare — they made the level so dark though, it’s nearly impossible to see in most lighting on the original DS. I found this very annoying.

The game played similar to other Spyro games though. It is a 3D world that Spryo jumps, flies and moves around in. Spyro is a good game for younger gamers. The fighting style isn’t well put together — it tries to use the pen/touch features, but you end up slamming buttons all around.

The puzzles are done well though. They use the pen and are long enough. They also use it better, moving pieces of the puzzle around on a grid to solve it. They are fairly easy puzzles, but again the game is aiming itself for a younger generation.

Overall, the pen fighting is a pain, but the rest of the game was fairly solid platformer. It’s still pretty generic, and the lighting early on is awful.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Sierra
Developer: Amaze Entertainment
Platform: Nintendo DS (reviewed), GBA, Wii, PS2
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1
Launch Date: October 2, 2007

Playability: 4 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 4 out of 5 stars
Sound: 4 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 3 out of 5 stars
Overall: 3 out of 5 stars