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Dementium – The Ward Review

Score 7.8/10

At first glance of this game I was was very impressed. The setting is an abandoned mental hospital, covered with smears of blood and gore, so as you can probably tell this game isn’t for kids. I guess that’s what appealed to me, as the majority of DS games are targeted at the younger gamer and there are only a few games that have an adult feel to them. This game kind of reminds me of Touch The Dead crossed with Resident Evil.

This is an arcade game, there may be a story line but I have not paid much attention to it. You simply walk around endless corridors looking for weapons to kill the hordes of zombies. It sounds pretty boring, and it has been done to death (excuse the pun), but at the end of the day it is what some people want out of a game.

Graphically it outshines most DS games and it has a real dirty feel to it. The 3D engine is pretty powerful for a DS game and there are several little graphical touches that give the game a greater sense or realism. For example, the top screen which is the first person view point has a texture on top of it which gives the game a feeling of grit and dirt. Using a combinations of steering your direction with the touch screen and d-pad and firing with the L button, moving around the environment is intuitive and within a few minutes you pretty much know what you are doing.

Check out these graphics

The sound is great on this game. A few times I was actually scared by zombies jumping out of nowhere! Its not often a game gets to me like that, in fact the last time I remember that happening was Resident Evil on the Playstation. (The bit where the zombie dogs jump through the window!)

All in all this game is a bit of fun. It looks fantastic and the environment is believable. Somehow though I am left a bit disappointed, this game is missing something, perhaps its depth. It is a fairly linear title, which despite a great aesthetic delivery fails to sustain any long term play and is all too predictable. The only saving grace being its control method, although this in its self does little to garner any extended time from a title you have probably played before.

One of the best and most popular rom websites has finally closed down. Here is an extract from their notice of closure.

It is with great regret that we must announce the immediate closure of RomUlation. We’ve had a good streak in our opinion, almost a year of service where we managed to rise to being one of the most popular ROM sites, if not the most popular one. At our peak we served 35,000 people daily; pushing 241mbit/sec of data; on average we serve 25,000 people daily while pushing 80-120mbit/sec of data. This was not cheap to provide but then again, we were never in it for the money, but because we believe that the current system Nintendo use is flawed. What follows is a rant on this very topic, if you have no interest in this then I suggest you skip to the second headline where there will be some technical details for users who were premium members and about our future.

You can read the rest in full here, something I would recommend you do. The author, Seph, makes some interesting, and in my opinion, valid points about Nintendo and the gaming industry as a whole.

As some of you may know I have recently ordered an EZ Flash 3 in 1 tool for my Nintendo DS. Well that’s not strictly true. I have now ordered two of them. The first one was ordered quite some time ago and I still haven’t received it. I am filing a case with PayPal so I can’t give any more details until the case has been resolved and I have been refunded.

I’m not 100% happy with the service I have received from the other store either, but again I will give this more time before writing a full review on these stores and of course the 3 in 1 tool itself.

I guess the real problem here is that many of the bigger and better known stores like to steer clear from modchips, flash cards and anything that could void the warranty of a games console. There has always been a link between emulation and piracy, so really I can’t blame them for making that decision.

With the void of these bigger, well established online shops and stores we are left with the only people willing to take the risk in selling such products, the small or one man band companies. Unfortunately, a lot of these people don’t seem to have the staff, training or systems in place to make the process of actually ordering a product and receiving it easy. I am not criticising all small online shops, far from it: I think its a great thing, but I really believe a bit more effort in the customer services department wouldn’t go a miss. I guess this is probably true for bigger stores also. To me, and I believe most shoppers, whether its online or down the local high street, decent customer services is of vital importance. Read more

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass Review
Score 9.6/10

It has been a good few weeks now since I started playing this fabulous game and I still haven’t completed it yet. As you can probably tell from my first sentence I am very pleased with how this game has turned out. Initially I was really concerned that the method of controlling our hero Link, by use of the stylus would ruin this game, however I find that if anything it has improved it considerably.

Most gamers are familiar with the Zelda story lines so I will spare you the history lesson, less to say that the Zelda franchise has taken many incarnations since 1986 and the majority of these games are based around the idea of saving a princess named Zelda. More recent games tended to have a particular theme. Majora’s mask is about a mask, the Ocarina of times is themed around an instrument, and this game has an hourglass. The hourglass is used to preserve your health whilst in the Temple of the Ocean King. A simple concept, but there is much more to the game than that.

At first I thought this version of Zelda was going to be a quick one to conquest. After all I have completed The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past many times over the years and I am familiar with the way Zelda games work. I soon realised that this game was holding back, it was just revealing part of what it had to offer, and it is a much bigger game than I first imagined. The storyline is engaging and the puzzles are rewarding and this game feels fresh.

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There seem to be many websites that now offer free downloads of Ninitendo DS Roms. I have listed a couple below. What interested me though is how they get away with this. It is essentially piracy after all! I know there is the old argument that you can make a backup of software you have purchased, but I think that’s just an excuse really. Anyway, I wont complain.

http://nds-roms.com/
http://www.romulation.net/
http://dashroms.com

I have recently ordered an EZ 3 in 1 expansion pack. I will write a full review once it arrives as currently the only ones I can find are directly from the manufacturer. Regardless, I am looking forward to playing with the new toy. As well as the ability to play Gameboy Advance games and roms from my M3 simply the 3 in 1 also has a rumble feature and some much needed extra ram. Such ram is used by the DS to actually run Gameboy Advance roms (weird really that you need extra ram to run older games) and is also used for the DS browser. I believe this memory can also be used for special homebrew applications, but I wonder, are there any official games that can take advantage of this extra memory? I certainly have not seen any examples of this.

I remember, many years ago the N64 console brought out an expansion pack allowing certain games like Doom 2 to have enhanced graphics. Other systems like the Super Nintendo also had cartridges with special chips such as the infamous mode 7 chip to enhance the capability of games. Now, why aren’t games developers making the most of these readily available expansion packs for the DS? Maybe it is because they tend to be associated with the homebrew scene, something that Nintendo obviously does not want to bring attention too.

Worms Open Warfare 2
Score 9.2/10

If you played the original Worms Open Warfare on the Nintendo DS then you probably think this game isn’t worth looking at. Lets face it, the first attempt, if you can call it that was poor at best. However I am delighted to say that Worms Open Warfare 2 is a magnificent game, in fact I would go so far as to say its one of the best games I have played on.

For those of you that have been living in a cave for the last decade, the Worms franchise is a large one with countless variations of the game on multiple systems. The plot is simple, you have 4 worms each and you take it in turn trying to kill each other. Think Lemmings with guns.

This game has been completely rebuilt from the ground up and it shows. Beautiful, smooth running graphics with fantastic game play is a winning combination. There are a large assortment of weapons from your usual bazookas and mines to the more unusual, and much more dangerous super-sheep, donkeys and holy hand grenades. What really makes this game so great is the sheer amount of variation: there are loads of weapons and levels, but more importantly there’s a large assortment of game modes. Believe it or not, the 1 player mode is actually very good, something I have yet to see on another version of the game. As well as various change modes there are also some game modes that are unique to the Nintendo DS. In particular, I really enjoyed the “Laboratory” mode where you have to get your worm to the target point using hand drawn lines and explosives.

The game described above is an amazing one, but add the amazing wireless modes and we are laughing. This must be the first online game that comes anywhere close to the experience on home consoles such as the Xbox 360. As well as your friends list there is also a rivals list which you can add to immediately after a match with some random person, there’s no bits of paper with 10 digit codes, just the press of a button – now why don’t more games work like this?

As mentioned above what makes this game great is the sheer amount of variation and customisability. You earn points from completing tasks which you can exchange for rewards. For example you can by new voices and weapons. Talking of voices, there’s a load of them including classic, brummie, scouser, redneck, Irish and cyberworms to name just a few.

This level of charm and dedicated attention to detail is rare in a game, and part of me thinks this is an apology from Team 17, the makers of the first Worms Open Warefare game. I have a copy of Worms on my Xbox 360, and sure its only the Xbox Live Arcade version, but its nowhere near as good as the one on my DS. Worms Open Warfare 2 is an amazing game. If you don’t own a copy already, you are missing out big time!

One of the things I love about my Nintendo DS is the great build quality. Apart from 1 dead pixel that I have had from the start (and doesn’t bother me anyway) my DS is the same as when I received it one Christmas. I wish I could say the same for my Xbox 360. Not only has it previously suffered the fabled “red rings of death” but I have had a total of 4 Xbox live headsets due to the fact that they all break. Of the 3 headsets that I have had previously, the longest lasting one was a non-official one brought off ebay, the official ones broke within a couple of months each. The last one I brought cost my a mere £4.00 ($8.00) and it made me laugh when I read the extremely bad translation from Chinese to English on the packaging.

Here are some of my favorite examples:

• “You can make server to record for friend or family and stay the speech message through the free X-box Live letter, can also replace telephone and good friend contact.”
• “Open loudly or adjust the small voice, make experience personally the most vigorous game career to make possible.” (Sounds exciting hey? I want a game career!)

and my favorite:

• “The ear Michael with put X-360 hand handles or the X-box lead-in hand handles of X-box very easy and directly”

Such gibberish is known as the slang term Chinglish. I reckon in this example the producers of the packaging used some sort of online translator.


Click to enlarge

We were lucky enough to be granted an interview with Shaun Taylor, the creator of the popular DS homebrew application DSOrganize. For those those few of you that haven’t heard of DSOrganize, it is as the name suggests an organiser application, but it has much more than that including a web browser, an IRC application and an audio player. Another cool little feature is the ability to download from the homebrew database directly onto your DS

We asked Shaun a series of questions, here are his responses. We hope you find this interview as informative and interesting as we did.

“First, a little about me: I am 21 and currently pursuing a degree in Computer Science, and have recently transferred to UCLA. I am currently working at ViaSat part time while I go to school, and before that I worked at Best Buy in Mira Mesa on the Geek Squad. DSOrganize is my first major project on a console, but I have had other somewhat large projects on the PC such as YoungMX, a media player I wrote for myself and a few friends.”

What were your motivations behind creating DSOrganize?

“When I started getting into DS homebrew, I really liked the idea of having touch-based inputs on the device itself. It meant that I could design a whole array of applications that used inputs similar to a PC but tuned specifically to a small device. However, I didn’t start with DSOrganize right away. I was rusty on my C and had never developed for a console before, so I started off with libfb, HappyCat Demo, and DrugWars (my only successfully homebrew game). Rolling around to a new semester at school, I thought it would be really neat if I could throw together a really quick organizer-style application that allowed you to take notes down, much like the pocket schedulers they used to give out at middle/high school. I got to work writing a small calendar display app, and then released a small demo that allowed you to save reminders on the GBAMP and SuperCard CF based on a specific day. Most of the application was based around my already-written libfb code that could display word wrapped text and manage a cursor. After that got out, a few people in the scene suggested a day viewer with time slots to schedule your day, and DSOrganize kind-of grew out from there. I never really meant it to get as big as it did, but I keep getting good suggestions and ideas and I am not bored with it yet.”

What are your favourite features?

“My favorite features are probably the Audio Player and the Web Browser. Both of them were very hard to get working, and represent an awful lot of work to get to the finished product. Also, being a geek meant that I felt way cooler walking around school listening to a device that I programmed myself. The web browser is another favorite due to the fact that I can show off what the DS can do with a very limited amount of ram. Other than that, any feature that specifically uses DS hardware, such as the audio recording function, is one of my better-liked features simply due to the novelty.”

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Castlevania - Portrait of Ruin
Score: 8.2/10
This is Konami’s second offering from the highly successful and blood thirsty series, and without a doubt retaining all the quality and 2d charm of its fore bearers.

Portrait of ruin offers the choice of two playable characters, vampire hunter Jonathan Morris and Magician Charlotte Aulin. The story is that our two friends are united in battle to prevent a pair of evil vampiric sisters - Loretta and Stella - from resurrecting Draculas castle in a heinous plot to unleash a world of pain unto an unsuspecting world, already ravaged by the events of the second world war.

Much of the stylus requirements from Castlevania: Dawn of sorrow has been done away with in place for other varied concepts, the buddy up system being the most noticeable addition to the formula. Whether this is a positive move could purely boil down to personal preference, although it is fair to suggest that the experience does not suffer as a result overall.

Our two protagonists can be played individually or together to combine their special skills, as freely as the player may wish. Although some sections of the game are impassible without such collaboration you will find that up to 95% of the game can be played single handedly, which does suggest a missed opportunity rather than a bolt on feature.

Technically, despite the portrait format, these paintings are actually landscapes depicting the various locales available for exploration and besides, landscape of ruin anyone? But the inclusion of portraits as portals has allowed for some of the more unusual and exotic settings seen in the serious, from a mad circus inspired environment to one based on Egyptian mythology. Access to these environments is not restricted and there are various map portal dotted around each level to maintain the pace of the game.

New to the series are a selection of specifically structured quests, courtesy of a trapped ghost character defeated by Dracula known as Wind. Quite possibly the strongest addition to the series, our players are invited to complete certain objectives in reward for special skills and abilities unavailable elsewhere, although other attributes such as strength power,weapons and special items are all found as you progress through the multitude of dungeons. Although not strictly an RPG, The user does have access to a RPG orientated menu where by you can customise the weapons, spells and other such attributes to either suit your style of play or to defeat a given section of the game.

The wireless inclusion of this title enables the player to have a friend help out in a co-op version, which in turn is probably better suited to utilising the combined attributes of the players in the single player mode although this sadly seems only to apply to the boss rush mode. Again,a definite missed opportunity.

There is also a shop mode which allows for the trade of various other items, although some items are actually beyond any use with regards to progression of the game.

The graphics are worthy of a mention, with an almost seamless addition of 3d elements and stunningly realised boss characters add to a visual treat. The music is passable, and although there are speech elements, none seem to amount to any more than phrases harking back to the days of the SNES. Given the machines blatant technical superiority, a little more spoken dialogue between the pivotal characters would of been more than welcome.

Although the game doesn’t quite carry the initial gravity the first title offered, it is in no way an inferior product. There are no noticeable problems with the game but in a similar vein to the earlier version, there are some sadly missed opportunities. Whether or not Konami choose to up the bar or continue to offer a different and unproven experience in a further title remains to be seen. But as far as the Castlevania series is concerned this a worthy addition and should keep fans and new comers more than entertained.