WiiWare Review: FF Crystal Chronicles, My Life as A King

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Chris Till
on May 23, 2008
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Ok so I downloaded this almost the minute WiiWare launched here along with LostWinds (which I’ve played some of but not much yet). This game is probably the best £10 I’ve ever spent on a game before. Most games this price are good but don’t really keep me coming back for more. Games like Super Stardust HD, Pain, Calling all Cars and the others. This game however, although it can feel frustrating at times when your guys keep failing a dungeon or the slow progress you sometimes feel, it’s still a great game with tons of depth especially when you consider all you’re really doing is staying at home the entire time.

There is a lot of satisfaction to be had from building up your kingdom and keeping your people happy.  The town will never feel bustling and alive since its not an MMO and the people are computer controlled, it will never feel like logging into wow and seeing people everywhere going about their business. However it does do as good of a job as it can. I would say it would have been nice if they could have a wider array of things to say when you talk to them, but on the other hand I often don’t read what they say anyway.

The game at first is very basic but when it builds up and you unlock new buildings, it actually starts to get pretty complicated. You’re faced with making sure you train your adventurers in the right jobs, create balanced parties, and send your guys to suitable dungeons. For a WiiWare game there is a lot of depth here and the game will keep you coming back for many hours.

When I do get to the end of the game, (although I’m not exactly sure if it ever does end) or at least finish all the dungeons in the game, I’ll probably check out some of the downloadable content. Some of the stuff here doesn’t really add to the game at all, costumes for the king and Chime aren’t really necessary and are from my point of view a waste of the 100 points each you’ll spend on them. On the other hand there are dungeon packs which will offer prizes for completing them which will up your limit on various buildings like houses which in turn will give you more gil for spending on various things. You can also get a triple pack of new races. This allows you three different building types, for each of the races, these races each excel at various jobs and so looks like it can really extend the life of the game.

The Conduit

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on May 18, 2008
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This is definitely a must-buy wii game when it comes out, although for me personally its going to be about online no matter how good the rest of the game is, in the same way as prime 3.

High-Voltage are doing some really cool stuff on the Wii, Animales looks great on wiiware, and they have another wiiware title which is a space shooter I’m also looking forward to.

The Wii Storage Issue

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on May 18, 2008
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Theres always been a lot of talk about how the wii doesn’t have enough storage space available. While I do agree that there is a problem, I would also say that the president of Nintendo, who said recently that they are addressing the problem which effects a small percentage of Wii owners in the near future. IGN guys said that this is a joke and that everyone is running out of space, but that’s probably because they are all heavy virtual console downloaders and therefore have clouded judgement, when in fact most people have probably downloaded either one or two virtual console titles, and a few free channels. I am that way, I downloaded the mii contest channel, everybody votes and two VC games, columns and 1080 snowboarding. I am probably someone who has downloaded more than a large percentage of wii owners because for one thing, a lot of them have probably never been connected to the internet, and even those who have may not have even downloaded any channels or games.

Now that WiiWare is coming out though, and for those people who are the hardcore retro gamers who downloaded loads of games, Nintendo really need to open up the SD slot to allow running of channels and games straight off them instead of having to copy and delete channels in order to play them.

I’m also wondering what will happen when people have more than 48 channels on their wii in the future, which can happen. Will the Wii menu continue to expand or will there be a limit to how many channels are possible?

So in conclusion, the probably isn’t as bad as some people think, but it is for a small percentage of owners, and in the near future it will be for many more players too. We’ll probably hear about what Nintendo’s plans are at E3 and a firmware update will probably follow shortly after that opening up the SD slot. I can’t see them bringing out a hard drive or anything like that, but maybe they will allow usb drives and SD cards to give people a choice. It will be either of those things, and definitely won’t be telling people to buy another wii if they want more storage. I really hope not at least.

WiiWare is looking good

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on May 18, 2008
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With the US launch of wiiware last week and the UK / Europe launch on Tuesday, I’m excited with how the service is making an impact and showing its potential right from the start. With two must have games in the launch line-up with many more to come, WiiWare I hope will be a success for Nintendo and more importantly, the (mostly) small developers that are making innovative original games for the new Wii download service.

I’m definitely going to revisit this to give reviews of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, My Life as A King and LostWinds, the two must-have launch games on tuesday or whenever I’ve played enough of them to have my own opinion.

From looking at IGN and some other small review sites, LostWinds is by far the standout game of the bunch with my life as a king being more of a niche title, and more for people who are fans of games like animal crossing, sim city and other slower paced management games like that. The big mistake that some people may make is being My Life as A King thinking that it’s a traditional FF RPG style game, when in fact your just managing your kingdom and your people rather than venturing out to be the hero yourself. Me personally, I really like the concept, and the graphics, for a WiiWare game are stunning from what I’ve seen of it so far. LostWinds is also a stunning looking game for a WiiWare title and as IGN’s review says at the top, it’s better than a lot of full price wii games, which obviously shows WiiWare is off to a great start, unless your comparing it to data design games, but whatever.

So basically the short of this post is that WiiWare is a great step for Nintendo to take and that if you’re out there and have some cash to blow on some games then you can’t go wrong with these when you consider the price. This is the kind of stuff people need to support on Wii. This and games like Boom Blox which really use the wii remote well, and suit the console. The sales of Pro Evo 8 on Wii are apparently pretty poor which is extremely dissapointing considering how they’re really innovating at Konami with great IR controls. That’s another game you should pick up to support Konami and the effort they have made to innovate on Wii.

To quickly sum up WiiWare, great start and I hope they keep up the momentum with good weekly releases. There are some good titles on the way I’m probably going to end up buying. Especially Bomberman with 8 player wi-fi connection. That’s going to be so fun. World of Goo is coming and already frontier have announced LostWinds 2 which is great news.

GTA IV Review

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on May 13, 2008
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You could say why write your own review when they do such a good job on IGN, but I have some stuff regarding mainly the multiplayer I want to address.

This game, while the story is undoubtedly amazing, I got it pretty much exclusively for the online. On IGN they say its worthit just for the online and I completely agree.

Instead of talking about why its so great I’ll go into what’s not so good instead since its quicker. Once you get out of the lobby its almost flawless but its the lobby system itself that really let’s the online down. The main issues are the slow ready system, only leaders being able to change game modes or settings instead of a mariokart style voting system and not having a chat box in the lobby. I understand it may get combersome to allow voting on settings but not allowing voting on game type or race tracks or vehicles is inexcusable for me. For example there is no way to play a helecopter race or drive an ice-cream truck unless I’m a leader (which I never am) or if im lucky enough to join one which also pretty much never happens.

The only other thing I would mention is that when they patch the lobby system to streamline it, they should add pool, bowling and darts to the list of multiplayer game modes, even if they have to make a “mini games for noobs” section. I just feel like these mini games are probably better than full pool, bowling and darts games on ps3 or xbox and therefore why leave them out of the online experience. I think I read you can do them in free and party modes. However, with no in-game messaging besides voice (until the in game XMB) how can you get anyone but your friends to play with you? Its harder than getting someone to give you a hellicopter race, that puts it in some perspective.

anyway despite these shortcomings, the game is obviously a must buy and if you don’t have it then get it unless your name is Jack Thompson.

So back on topic this game is probably deserving of the perfect 10 and if they streamline the online then it will absolutely seal the deal. My only concern is that where do you draw the line with 10s. Its going to be interesting to see what reviewers give to other high profile games in the near future.

Go and buy or play this game now and if you need more convincing (like what the story is like) check the following IGN review, then go to IGN.com and check out the ads there so I don’t get sued.

High Hopes for Gaming in 2008

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on March 3, 2008
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2008 is going to be a really good year for gaming and thats not to say 2007 was a slouch at all. We had Super Mario Galaxy and COD4 last year among others, I almost forgot about The Burning Crusade and tons of other games I can’t remember right now. This year I’m looking forward to some great Nintendo titles like Mario Kart Wii, Smash Bros. Brawl and Wii Fit. All of which will be amazing for sure. Then on the PS3 side, although not a game, Playstation Home will be interesting to check out, plus a Gran Turismo 5, Metal Gear Solid 4, GTA 4, Haze and more to look forward to. On the PC side theres WoW The Wrath of the Lich King, Starcraft 2 and the impressive looking Spore. I’m not really much of a hardcore PC gamer but I’m really looking forward to playing these games. Then for those into the whole Xbox side of things, there’s Fable 2 that has been talked up for a while now, and of course Gears of War 2 which will be in the running for game of the year, but then again there are so many here that could win. I wouldn’t be too surprised if Wii Fit won to the dismay of hardcore gamers everywhere. Anyway, I’m sure I’m missing some from this list but I think even if I did this is still another huge year for gaming. Just not too kind to people’s wallets.

Taking the Blog a new direction

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on March 3, 2008
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I think I got to the point a while back where I didn’t want to just talk about apple stuff anymore and I’ve hardly mentioned anything Apple related for a while, including the iphone and numerous hardware updates.

I will quickly say though that the iPhone is great but needs improvement, the iPod touch I have and think its amazing, and the new MacBook Air and subsequent MacBook updates are all great, except the MacBook got no multi-touch love which is predictable really.

On the other hand though each update seems to be less and less exciting and I just can’t see a reason for me to update my computer, which is a good thing really in terms of saving money, but its also brought on by my own change in attitude to having a powerful computer to just wanting a laptop that can do what I need, and as far as that goes, this one is going to be fine for a long while to come. Especially when you consider how slowly processor speeds and ram seem to be growing. The only thing that is exciting right now is that flash memory is getting cheaper so SSD drives are going to be commonplace and larger in the next year or two which will be nice.

Moving away from the Apple focus is what this post is about though and so after this Apple catch-up I’m going to talk about whatever comes to mind, from any company, plus whatever else is going on I want to write about.

I’m glad the format war is over

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on February 17, 2008
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It seems pretty clear now that after the pretty terrible turn of events over the last couple of months, everything has finally taken it’s toll on Toshiba and HD DVD and they have decided to throw in the towl and let Blu-Ray be declared the winner.

Personally I am pleased because I bought a PS3 and only have blu-ray. However, I also don’t have an HDTV so really its an added bonus for me since I really only bought the PS3 as a gaming system. It’s nice to know that when I do get an HD set I will already have the format I need.

On the other hand, I do feel bad for Toshiba even though I think Sony deserved to win a format war for once. In an ideal world they would have come to an agreement before this even started and just come up with one single format that people could adopt. Unfortunatly that wasn’t the case and Toshiba are forced to go and lick their wounds and undoubtedly come out with a blu-ray player of their own soon.

It’s going to be interesting to see how long it takes for the movie studios and manufacturers that were aligned with HD-DVD to switch to blu-ray if they do at all. Mostr natably for me on the hardware side of things, whether or not Microsoft will bring out a blu-ray adaptor for the Xbox 360.

So anyway It’s nice to finally have a conclusion to this whole thing so we can move on with Blu-Ray as our format of choice for this generation of devices, until theres another war, but I really hope there isn’t.

Also from a personal standpoint, this is great news for me as a PS3 owner and fan in that this is going to surely give PS3 sales a huge boost as it’s still the cheapest Blu-Ray player on the market.

One final point regarding the HD-DVD fail is regarding porn and how people said when HD DVD was adopted by the porn industry the war was effectively over. I never thought this because even though it may have been a deciding factor for some and may possibly have triggered some negative press for sony which would make other people thing twice before buying blu-ray, for the most part people these days won’t buy a dvd of porn when it’s so widely available online which is why it wasn’t as much of a deciding factor as it might have been during the betamax vs VHS war where VHS was the format of choice for the porn industry.
The only thing this whole thing has proven is that early adopters take a big risk and people who sit back and wait get the best results. There will always be early adopters though who will be willing to take those risks.

iPod Event Thoughts

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on September 6, 2007
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So fresh off another Apple event I thought I’d post some thoughts on the stuff they announced today.

iPod Shuffle: Not too much to say here, they changed the colours to some different, more interesting flavours. They’re nice for people who want a shuffle now because they look more sophisticated than the previous ones. Other than the colour, nothing else to talk about.

iPod Classic: They took the 5.5g model and added an ridiculously huge hdd to it. For me personally I would have no use for even the 80gb since my macbook drive is 60gb and I don’t have enough room for more than 20gb of itunes stuff on there anyway. I can’t even really think who would want that much on their iPod. I would probably only put the last episode of each podcast on there and my music collection is at the moment 3.5gb so it would be wasted space. Anyway, aside from the huge storage increase, they lowered the price which is nice and also changed the look. It still has the shiney, scratchable back but now a nano-esque aluminum front in silver or black which definitely looks better than the old white and black plastic. The interface on it looks much nicer and I like the included games. I think vortex is a nice game for when your somewhere and need to waste a few minutes. Overall I can’t complain with this. However I was surprised they didn’t just completely replace it with the touch and call that the iPod, but if they had done that, the touch wouldn’t be flash based which I much prefer.

iPod nano: The nano is interesting for a couple of reasons. Mainly bad reasons. Starting with the positives, as I said with the classic, the interface is nice, the games are a good addition, the price and memory are good and of course the addition of video is difficult to complain about. However, none of those things can make up for the look of this thing. Apple usually get the design spot-on but this new nano is so ugly looking it’s embarrasing.

They’ve taken away the sleek style of the last nano and replaced it with something that looks too toyish and cute. There’s nothing really wrong with that but for me it’s lost it’s appeal. I think it’s the rounded corners and square shape that make it seem like that. Even if the screen is bigger why not put it in a different way and make it less square. I’m guessing the squareness and the small size will make it difficult to hold and use the click wheel easily but thats just my impression. You could compare it to the creative zen micro which is very similar and is also very toy like in appearance.

The final thing about the nano is cover flow, as with the classic too. You could also include the touch and iPhone but it works better on those I think. Cover flow is fine, but Apple seem intent on touting it as such a great feature when it’s so gimmicky. It looks nice in itunes and the iPhone/touch but after the first couple of times I wouldn’t use it. Once the novelty wears off it becomes just a waste of battery power and time when you could just be flicking or scrolling straight to where you need to be. Plus it’s not like you can’t see the album art in the now playing view anyway. They should have just said it has cover flow and moved on to the next thing. Overall, it’s not that bad and will undoubtedly sell tons, I just wish they had come up with a more streamlined look.
iPod touch: I should point out to begin that I have already placed an order for an 8gb one of these and I’ll explain why. I always said that the iPhone would be amazing for me if I could have it without the phone and the contract which come side by side. I wanted to have a video iPod with flash memory so I didn’t have to have a hard drive that could break and bad battery life. I also wanted the safari browser for taking out to keep a check on things and not have to bring my laptop with me. The YouTube thing and safari were a bonus really because I wasn’t expecting anything other than a simple iPod with a touch screen. The whole wi-fi thing with login pages made sense and youtube of course makes sense too, then to top that, the wi-fi store blew my mind as I really didn’t expect it despite hearing rumours of it crop up a little.

There were people who were saying why didn’t they include mail, maps, etc…. The fact is they had to draw the line somewhere or this thing would be so much like the iPhone they might as well just put them in iPod boxes. I completely agree with how far they’ve gone. I feel like safari is a must due to the login issue and youtube too because this is an iPod after all and video is what it’s for. Calendar and contacts have been on every iPod so why not this one, but beyond that I don’t see how the other apps fit into what iPod does.

Some people were even saying they shouldn’t have got rid of the camera. Personally that would be taking an iPod device too far and there has to be some kind of distinction between the two devices. I think they’ve created just about enough and the only remaining thing I have a problem with is not having bluetooth when bluetooth headphones are going to become the norm sooner or later is kind of annoying. That and the fact that it looks so similar to the iPhone.

I was thinking it would be white or silver along with the black and have no home button, just a completly clean front with everything being touch except a few buttons on the top and bottom. I think that would have helped but instead it’s really hard to look at this and not think iPhone. It’s a cop out for Apple but it could have been worse.

Overall I thought it was a successful event except the wide nano and the totally overdone Starbucks thing. By the way, 7 f-ing shops a day?! That can’t be right can it?

TV Shows on iTunes UK Finally

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on August 29, 2007
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Yesterday I heard about TV shows from some big networks being put up on iTunes UK but I forgot about it until today. It really went straight over my head as I feel like for them to be giving us this now, so late and hyping it up to be a great thing shows how they have neglected us as usual. I had some excitement when I heard about it but it was overshadowed by a feeling of “meh”. Plus of course the standard higher than the freaking DVD prices for DRM’d downloads really sucks. Whatever show you go into, you will see multiple comments saying along the lines of “why do you give us late stuff that’s more expensive?” (kind of like the PS3). But even still, it is nice to have the option of buying one or two episodes.

What’s really strange to me is that we have TV shows but no movies as of yet. If I were a betting man I would have lost because I was sure that movies would be easier to make available due to the fact that they are launched everywhere and also because I thought there would be some kind of hurdle in the form of the BBC license fee. This has turned out not to be the case and Apple are instead focusing on commercial networks that operate in the US and UK fully. The BBC, which only has a re-run channel in the US is instead focusing on it’s incredibly crap windows and IE loving iPlayer. I’ve played with the beta and I’m not being unfair. Try it yourself if you’re in the UK and you’ll see. You can’t even go to the list of shows to download without opening IE. It’s also a trumendous resource hog. If you have it running in the background like it likes to do by default, the fans in the PC go nuts. Seriously, who made that app. This might be a good time to mention that it is a beta so maybe I should hold back my criticism until the final release. Then again, there’s no way it’s going to change enough to make me like it before the final version. I might make another post on the iPlayer later when they update it.

So in summary, TV shows on iTunes is a mostly cool thing. I will download a couple of episodes of avatar and some south park and see how it goes. I’m not happy about the pricing but it was to be expected really. I am dissapointed that some seasons of shows are more expensive than the DVD box set which is unacceptable but like I said I saw it coming. I think the biggest reason why the price is dissapointing is because for the slight knock in picture quality and lack of a case for the show, the only reason to buy online rather than the DVD other than the convenience is for the price and they haven’t delivered for the most part there.

However, I still think they’ll make some money on this and people will like the ability to buy individual episodes in the same way that some people like to pick and mix itunes tracks.