skip to main |
skip to sidebar
For a game famously inspired by the dollhouse decorating habits of creator Will Wright's daughter, it's amazing how many different situations the concept of The Sims has been applied to. There's been everything from pets, to hot dates, university, celebrities and business. Oh, and ants – really!
Now, with its latest version for Nintendo consoles (in this case Wii and DS), in MySims Electronic Arts appears to have decided to drop in elements from a couple of other simulation type games too, notably Sim City and Theme Park.
Of course, you'll start off creating your own highly customisable little fella (or gal). Everything from body shape to clothes and hairstyle – pig-tails, baseball caps, dreadlocks and mohawks – will be optional and, in contrast to previously games, presented in a highly manga-esque art style. You'll also be able to unlock extra clothing, hairstyles, accessories and expressions throughout the game.
But the main focus of MySims is customising the rundown leisure resort in which your MySim finds itself. In this respect, the game seems to be a bit like the DS version of The Sims 2, a game we were suprised to enjoy as much as we did, in which you had to take over a tired hotel and build it up into a successful operation.
In MySims, however, the game's scope appears to be much bigger, as you get a selection of basic building templates and object creation tools to shape the total look and feel of your resort – everything from new homes and businesses to leisure pursuits and even furniture, as well as the ability to landscape the environment with flowers and plants.
That said, as a single-player-only experience (again, like The Sims 2), it seems you'll have to follow a fairly linear plot, as the residents of the resort provide you with their requests and missions to satisfy. Less sandbox then, more join the dots.
News reaches us from Japan that Monster Hunter Portable 2nd sold half a million copies on day one of its release.
Of course, Japan is a land of cryto-zoology fanatics. If it's plastered with dragons (or any other mythical beast for that matter), be it a lunchbox, a packet of tissues, or a game, then chances are it will sell by the lorry load there. So it comes as little surprise that Monster Hunter Portable 2nd has given the PSP software sales a beastly boost.
Still, if the popularity of the new Monster Hunter game is sustained beyond its launch weekend, then the bundle (which includes the bizarre inclusion of cuddly meat) of the game could help to shift a few more PSPs in a region that currently seems near-obsessed with the DS.
Even though there have been roughly five million PSPs sold in Japan so far, games released for Sony's handheld seldom make a dent in the Japanese top ten. Demand for Monster Hunter Portable 2nd however has been greater than even the likes of Pokemon Diamond, Dragon Quest Monsters Joker and Final Fantasy III. All top-selling DS titles, all with monsters.
Perhaps the real question is: Are monsters the new stealth? Probably not, but at least they are helping to fly the PSP flag where it needs flying most.
Hovr has officially launched an advertising-funded mobile games service, following a two-month beta test that saw more than 200,000 free game downloads.
The service already has more than 100 games on offer, and reckons that advertising will help more people to start downloading games to their phones, rather than just playing what's preloaded when they buy them.
"Most people who play games are just playing free demos or the games that are preloaded on their phone," says Hovr president Vipul Sawhney. "And when you ask them what's holding them back from buying new games, one of the biggest reasons is price. Games are out of reach for a large majority of mobile subscribers."
Hovr's solution is advertising-funded games, using its technology to insert ads in the dead space within games, such as loading screens.
The company has signed deals with over 15 developers and publishers, including Kiloo, Ozura and Robotube Games. However, the big names – like EA Mobile, Gameloft and Glu – are conspicuous by their absence.
"We're definitely interested in speaking to the larger players like those companies," says Sawhney. "The situation is that it's still early days for these advertising-supported games, so we're starting off with some of the smaller publishers."
Hovr hasn't announced yet who'll be advertising within the games on its service, although Sawhney says you can assume it'll be media-savvy companies who are keen to reach 12-29 year-olds, plus companies selling other forms of mobile content, such as ringtones and wallpapers.
Sawhney is also keen to stress that its service isn't just about adverts. Hovr also includes social networking profiles, where you set up a profile on the Hovr site, invite your friends to join, and can upload high scores – and be sent an alert when a friend beats your score.
That said, this does filter into the advertising side too. "With all these capabilities, we have a much more targeted impression of who you are, and when you play," reckons Sawhney.
"We can use this to target you in the manner that's most relevant to you. We don't share your personal data with advertisers, but for example an advertiser like a beer company might come to us and say they want to target people who are 21 years or older, and who can buy beer in the US."
One obvious reason why some of the big publishers haven't dived into the ad-funded model may be their fears that giving games away for free with ads will stop people from buying full-price games. It's certainly something we've heard them say at industry conferences. How does Sawhney respond?
"We don't see that at all," he retorts. "People will realise it's not the case. We'll actually be helping the premium downloads, because we'll be getting people who are unaware of mobile gaming to try it on a free level first, but then they'll go on and buy premium games if they have a good experience."
Hovr went officially live today: check the website here. And stand by for a feature later this week, where we'll be testing a selection of the games, to see how they compare to the ones you can pay for elsewhere. (Click 'Track It!' to be reminded via email).
No one ever seems to have a good word to say about the men from the council. They're either increasing our taxes, setting up road calming humps, or fining us for putting envelopes into our paper recyling sack (by mistake, we didn't mean it!). If it was a Ninja Council, we assume the level of compliance from the local population would improve somewhat. The first Naruto on DS (the previous two titles being GBA games), we don't imagine the latest in the manga spin-off series involves going around cleaning up graffiti or dealing with noisy neighbours. Instead, you'll work your way through 60 missions using a fluid attack system that enables you to combo the jutsu techniques from over 20 characters. Plot-wise, headstrong ninja-in-training Naruto Uzumaki and classmates Sakura and Sasuke will be doing their best to learn the importance of friendship, teamwork, loyalty, hard work, and beating crap out of their enemies – all under the watchful eye of their teacher, Kakashi. And after you've attempted to battle your way to the top as your favourite character from the TV show, you'll be able to relax with your friends via the four-way multiplayer battle mode. Due a 2007 release in the US, there's not yet a confirmed European publisher for Naruto: Ninja Council 3. Let's just hope it can repair the damage to handheld ninjitsu's reputation following the lamentable Shinobido on PSP, which we reviewed earlier this week.
Most of us at Pocket Gamer are supposedly grown up, which occasionally makes us wonder if we should put childish things away. Then a box set of Futurama or perhaps Family Guy will beckon us into their warm embrace, and we may as well be 14 again.
Fair enough, you think – but surely SpongeBob SquarePants is a step too juvenile? So my guilty secret is out. If I'm honest, I actually enjoy the antics of Bob of the spongey pantaloons, Patrick Star and Eugene Krabs.
Whether that enthusiasm will transfer to the latest SpongeBob SquarePants game remains to be seen, however. There have been plenty of previous game examples – mainly on the GBA, but a couple on DS – and they haven't been too impressive. In fact, most have been downright pants.
This time, as the 'and Friends' part of the title informs us, Bob and Pat will be joined by their Nicktoons chums in the battle against an evil spirit from the Ghost Zone, who plans to destroy their island paradise.
So as well as the SpongeBob SquarePants dudes, you'll be able to choose playable characters from some ten other Nicktoons series, including Danny Phantom, The Fairly OddParents and Jimmy Neutron. There'll also be an option to play through the game in a co-operative two-player mode.
Not surprisingly, the action itself will be strictly of the 2D action platforming and exploration variety, as you make your way up the dreaded volcano, disposing of various cartoon villains as you go.
Until we hear more about why this game will be different from previous examples, we'll not be too excited. But perhaps there's still time to get some good news from publisher THQ: SpongeBob SquarePants and Friends: Battle for Volcano Island isn't due for release until June.
Reaxion is putting a new spin on the classic 'match three coloured shapes' puzzle genre – literally!
The game is called Spin-It!, and has an innovative structure that involves rotating a mechanism to match coloured spheres in sets of three.
There's also the usual bonuses that help you create chains and boost your score, with special balls including Bomb, Rainbow, Painter and Link Ball to collect and use.
The game will feature four modes: Career, Action, Puzzle and – for the really hardcore players – Endless. The game supports Reaxion's own Gamarama community for players to upload high scores, while also going to the Gamarama website to chat to other players.
Spin-It! is launching soon in the US, and hopefully soon after over here in Europe too.
In terms of difficulty, securing a publishing deal as a start-up video games developer is as tricky as finding a suitable use for the Millennium Dome. And if what you're trying to get published isn't part of an existing franchise or licensed to a major brand, then you may as well step into a Canadian grizzly bear sanctuary wearing a blazer lined with the freshest Scottish salmon. You'd have a better chance of winning over the bear than attempting to sell an original game idea within a publisher's meeting room (and you won't get torn to pieces as much – grizzlies aren't a match for marketing men).
So it's tough to be lost in the gaming space without a publisher – but Tiki Games isn't afraid of boldly going where few have gone before. Undeterred by the cold darkness of uncertainty it faces, the developer has been working on Galaxy's End, an original sci-fi realtime strategy concept designed specifically for PSP. This means that the convoluted control system usually associated with such titles has been streamlined to compensate for the fact that the last time we looked, the PSP didn't come with a slide-out keyboard.
We don't know how well this works in practice (Tiki is reporting the feedback it's had so far in this regard has been encouraging) but judging from the work-in-progress screenshots and accompanying trailer (click 'Watch It!'), all of the staple elements of an RTS appear solidly in place.
Galaxy's End currently seems promising, even if unlikely to prove revolutionary. That's by no means a criticism – the PSP could certainly do with an RTS, if only to broaden its horizons, and in the absence of competition there's surely no need to re-invent the warp drive?
Of course, without a publisher on board we'll never know, so let's hope one keeps its marketing department at bay long enough to give Galaxy's End the chance it seemingly deserves.
It must be fun being a fish breeder. Plonk a pair of guppies in a tank, stir in some Viagra, and await some frenzied fin action. Something like that, anyway.
Fish Tycoon may disprove our sketchy theory. It's a Tamagotchi-style game where you play a fish breeder, who has to save the eco-system of a magical island called Isola by, well, breeding fish. Stick to what you know, we say.
You control a virtual aquarium, and have to feed your fish and keep them healthy, while also breeding them to get new varieties. There's over 400 types of fish in the game, apparently, some of whom have special powers and magical properties.
Fish Tycoon is due out by summer, and is being published by Oberon Games, which is one of the larger web gaming firms, so has plenty of experience in these types of casual games. Check the trailer out below.
Buoyed no doubt by the massive success of Tetris DS, Nintendo today announced that the latest beneficiary of the revamp-o-wand will be Panel de Pon, a puzzle game that has been previously released as Tetris Attack, Pokemon Puzzle League and Pokemon Puzzle Challenge.
Never heard of it? Not to worry, it's pretty simple: players swap adjacent tiles in a large wall of blocks, with the aim being to make horizontal or vertical lines of three or more to delete them. A bit like Zoo Keeper, come to think of it.
In addition to benefiting from touch-screen control, the game will feature both a mission mode and a puzzle mode, the latter of which sees players trying to clear the screen of blocks with a limited amount of moves.
The game makes use of the DS' wi-fi capabilities to provide not only four-player local matches, but also battles over the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, complete with full voice-chat support.
Also new to this edition are items, which are used in competitive matches to hinder your opponent's progress.
Panel de Pon is set for a Japanese release on the 26th of April for
the modest price of 3,800 Yen (approximately £16). Although there's no word of an international release, if it's as succesful as Tetris DS we'd certainly not rule it out. Click on 'Track It!' and we'll keep you informed.
Tom and Jerry isn't much like the real world, is it? At least not in our house, where despite the cat bringing in a bedraggled rodent every couple of days, they've never once been on the wrong end of an anvil as a result.
Glu's previous Tom and Jerry games have been extremely popular with The Kids, but the publisher's new effort has the potential to cross over to grown-ups, too. It's called Tom and Jerry Pinball Pursuit, which should give you a clear idea about the game's content.
Yep, it's pinball, with the distinctly disturbing sight of a ball-shaped Jerry being pinged around three colourful tables. Each table is based on a certain area of the pair's house, which will be recognisable to anyone who's a fan of the original cartoons.
We had a go at 3GSM last week, and the game is looking really nice, with bold visuals and a great variety of angles for Jerry to travel in.
Tom and Jerry Pinball Pursuit is due out in the first half of this year, and already seems a cut above the usual lazy pinball tie-in games that have made themselves a nuisance on mobile in the past.
