Overview & Design

Logitech’s G430 headset comes in a rather colorful black-and-bright blue color scheme, which says right away that it has a lot of character. Looks is everything with gaming peripherals, and Logitech certainly didn’t make an ugly headset here. The G430 comes with cloth-covered foam ear pads that can be removed and replaced if they ever get worn out, or for just a quick wash if they ever get dirty. The foam is pretty stiff, and along with the snug fit of the headset, some gamers may find the headset discomforting after prolonged periods, as did I after about just a half hour of use.

The ear cups are adjustable — no surprise there — and they also can rotate 90 degrees to fit better on your head, as well as making storage easier for when you’re off to your next LAN party. The microphone can be adjusted both vertically and horizontally, meaning you can flip up the microphone away from your mouth, or bend the stem closer to your mouth in order to be heard more clearly by your fellow gamers.

The braided cable is really long — about 8 feet or so, but it comes with a nifty velcro strap to shorten it if need be. It also works to wrap up the entire cord for storage or mobility. We’re not sure why the cord is as long as it is. The only explanation would be if you were to feed the cord all the way behind your desk and connect it to the back of your gaming rig. Other than that, we find the long cord to be quite unnecessary. The G430 comes with inline controls on the cord, though, which allow you to adjust the volume and toggle mute the microphone quickly and easily. At the end, the cord forks off into separate audio in and out 3.5mm jacks, but the headset comes with a convenient USB adapter if you don’t have dedicated audio in and out ports (like on some laptops).

Audio Output

As for the quality of the sound produced by the G430, we were impressed. We’re not complete audiophiles, so we’re not too picky when it comes to audio, but we certainly weren’t disappointed with what we were hearing. In-game audio sounded terrific, especially when playing first-person shooters where the many explosions produced excellent bass. It made us feel more closer to the action when playing our favorite shoot-em-ups, especially with the on-board Dolby 7.1 surround sound, which allowed us to know what direction shots and grenade blasts were coming from, allowing us to better respond to the situation.

For the audiophiles out there, the G430 comes with 40mm drivers and has a frequency response of 20Hz-20KHz. There’s 32 Ohms of impedance, and the sensitivity rings in at 90dB SPL/mW. The microphone is unidirectional and has a frequency response of 50-20KHz.

Since the headset fits quite snugly, it has its own natural noise-cancelling technology of sorts. It was almost like we were wearing a pair of noise-cancelling ear muffs that you would wear on a construction site, only you could play audio through them. Even at high volume levels, audio remained crisp and there was no noticeable clipping going on. Even music sounded great through the headset, with clear mids and highs, along with the thumping bass.

Audio Input

Logitech touts that the microphone has noise-cancelling technology, and we can’t argue with them there. Friends listening on the other end said that we were coming in clear with a nice volume, although they reported that the bass wasn’t as good as it could have been. Nonetheless, in a heated gaming situation, the only important thing is that your teammates can at least hear you loud and clear, and the G430 accomplishes that with aplomb. It’s certainly not a microphone you would use if you needed a high-quality recording of yourself, but for gaming, it definitely does the job.

Software

The G430, as with most other Logitech products, comes with a software suite that includes a full-blown control panel to finely tune your headset to optimal settings. You can adjust things like individual volume levels for the microphone and the headphones, as well as adjust the bass and treble by 12 dB either up or down.

You can also adjust each individual channel in the headset’s Dolby 7.1 surround sound, all the way down to the subwoofer portion. This would come in handy if certain channels were too loud for your liking, allowing you to tone down that specific channel while keeping the rest of them the same.

The big thing with the software, however, is that it’s not supported on OS X. The headset will still at least work on Apple’s OS, but you won’t get the Dolby 7.1 surround sound or the control panel where you can fine-tune your settings. Instead, you’ll be using OS X’s default (and very limited) sound settings in System Preferences. Essentially, you won’t be getting the full experience through OS X as you would on Windows.

Wrap-Up

Overall, the Logitech G430 headset is a quality product, but is it worth the $80 price tag? Yes, it is very worth it. In fact, we think the headset is worthy of a $100+, so you’re definitely getting a bargain here. However, not every product is perfect, and the G430 comes with faults that could deter some gamers, including a really tight fit around the ears, an annoyingly long cable, and no full OS X compatibility. However, if you can look past these faults (which are mostly personal preferences anyway) the G430 is certainly worthy to be in any gamer’s repertoire.

You’ll be working with some console controller-quality controls here with the MOGA Pro, start to finish. With this controller you’ve got your classic XYAB buttons in the upper-right, two clickable joysticks, and a directional pad on the lower left. These controls are all hit by you with your thumbs as the rest of your fingers hold tight down below.

This device will have you tapping away with two sets of buttons up above near your index fingers – two “shoulder buttons” and two “shoulder triggers” should do the trick. Once you’re connected to your Android smartphone or tablet, you have only to head to the MOGA app to see the massive amount of games available to you already optimized for MOGA Pro interaction!

You’ve got games like Wild Blood, The Conduit HD, and Shadowgun awaiting you right this minute! You’ll be able to connect with any Android device that has Bluetooth ready to rock and with a combination of the flip-up device holder and the in-box inclusion of a talbet holder, you’ll have a harder time finding a device you can’t use with it.

This device allow you to work with built-in controls or create custom-fitted controls for any game that supports it. You’ll be playing all day and all night with a flip-on backlight toggle, switching back and forth between smartphone and tablet modes with a flip of the center clip, and the whole construction is small enough to fit easily in the front pocket of your backpack!

The pricetag on this device is perfectly suited to how much it’s worth – just $49 USD and you’ll be kicking your Android gaming experience into high gear. Have a peek at our hands-on photos above and below and bring the experience home with you sooner than later!

What you’re seeing here is a rather radical environment in which your mission is to destroy a mysterious and other-worldly enemy with a dynamic user interface available right from your touchscreen device or wirelessly with your own Bluetooth-connected gaming controller. You’ll be using pistols, machine guns, and a fabulously strange “All Seeing Eye” device (ASE in the game) to explore this strange new world and puzzle solve as you blast through the opposition. Below you’ll see the game running on the Google Nexus 7, the ASUS-made tablet working with NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 quad-core processor under the hood.

You’ll be able to control your gameplay from start to finish with control options everywhere from flipped tapping to auto-fire mode. You’ll be able to change the layout of the buttons and controls, change the way you target and move, and you’ll have – specifically – GameStop Controller support as well. This is the more “traditional” way to play the game, they say, with Bluetooth-connected blasting on your side.

The weapons you’ll be using number to 18, unique firing modes and actions for each, with the ASE to back you up from start to finish. You’ll be destroying your enemies which number to 14, for starters, both human and alien creatures coming at you not just from straight up in front, but below and up above as well. Head down the stairwell, watch out for snipers up on a second level, and toss grenades all around.

And the best part is the graphics have been given a bump between the original Wii version and here with NVIDIA’s Tegra SoC. With the Tegra 3 quad-core processor you’ll be blasting up and out with what the Chief Creative Officer of High Voltage Software, Eric Nofsinger, calls “console-quality visuals on mobile devices.” This includes enhanced lighting in all your darkest corners, higher resolution graphics than ever before, and “much-improved” visual fidelity compared to this game’s original release.

This game will be available to you immediately if not soon from the Google Play app store through the NVIDIA TegraZone with a rather unique pricing structure. You’ll be able to download the game for free, and the first two levels are completely free. After that you’ve got the option of buying the whole rest of the game at once for $4.99, or you can buy each of the two halves of the game for $2.99 each. At the moment we can’t imagine why you’d only want half the game, but to each their own.

Have a peek at the timeline below for more Tegra-enhanced games available in the NVIDIA TegraZone right this minute, and don’t forget to hit up our own massive Tegra Hub too for more NVIDIA mobile action than you can handle!

With NVIDIA’s contribution to the development of this game – optimization for the Tegra platform, that is – “The power of the NVIDIA Tegra processor on so many Android devices means that the game’s graphical polish and impact are being taken to a whole new level.” That comment comes direct from Remi Koscielny, CEO of Vivid Games. What we’ve seen thus far is a powerhouse of a game that’s ready to show the multi-core processing excellence of today’s most advanced devices like a pro.

What you’re seeing here is a game that comes with a variety of features surrounding one good time of a face-bashing time. You’ll find Unreal-powered graphics as well as motion capture that’ll be breaking your eyeballs with how painful it is – including blood and sweat right up off your athlete. You’ll be breaking down your opponent in this game’s career mode which includes over 30 fights – and three belt titles – you’ll find out exactly what kind of challenge that is when your right in the thick of it.

You’ll find mini games in this build made to train your boxer between matches – heavy and mini bag and skipping rope, too! In-game mini-games appear also, KO and Clinch hone your skills for energy boosts on-the-go. You’ll be unlocking new equipment, opponents, and customizations all along your journey to the top belt – hair, skin, tattoos, and clothing are all up to you to change up as you box out.

This game is available right this minute on the Google Play app store through the NVIDIA TegraZone. You’ll be tossing down $4.99 USD and knocking out all your favorite opponents in a variety of venues all night long – knock em out! And don’t forget to hit up our massive Tegra Hub right here on SlashGear while you’re at it!

BONUS: This game has been previewed by NVIDIA in a variety of ways in the time between CES 2013 and now – it’s such a killer game that they just can’t put it down! Have a peek at our hands-on with Real Boxing on NVIDIA’s Phoenix Developer Platform as well – that’s the Tegra 4i inside!

First you’ll be choosing either Predators or Aliens to control, right out of the gate. It won’t really matter in the end, as you’re controlling both throughout the game, but it’s nice to have the illusion of control. Once you’ve completed one chapter with your Predator, you’ll be switched back to your Alien, and you’ll be evolving step-by-step with both races whether you like it or not. And you’ll like it – you’ll play it all night long, and you’ll like it.

The storyline is almost irrelevant as you take on each of the two races of beings you’re not whenever you’re out in the field. Fighting scientists and colonial marines when you’re either a Predator or an Alien whenever you’re no fighting one or the other bloodthirsty other-worldly race, that’s the joy you get to experience in this app.

You’ll be running through environments both diverse and deadly: it’s not only the other organic creatures that are after you, it’s the fire and the explosions and the bullets, too. And just when you think you’re about to reach the end of your ability to massacre the enemy, you gain enough experience to add a new terrifying weapon to your arsenal. Or if you’re an Alien, a new level of evolution to your body.

The Predator begins as a nearly nude blade-wielding ruffian, while the Alien begins, appropriately enough, as a facehugger. You’ll find some strange tingling feeling in your fingertips as you leap at the face of the helpless lab worker in your wake, implanting Alien spawn into his gullet. Once you’re out of his chest and full grown, you’ll also be working with facehugger back-ups to help grow your friendly family.

At the moment this game is entirely offline and you’ll be going through a fairly strict storyline, and if that’s all this game is – it’s still well worth the cash you’ll drop on it. This is a game that makes us understand what our newly quad-core processors are doing, what they’re being used on. Without games like this, all that power could be going to waste – don’t let it!

Have a peek at Alien VS Predator: Evolution on your iOS or Android device this week and let us know how it goes. Also have a peek at the Fox Digital Entertainment game DIE HARD (2013) for a whole new class in mobile gaming – the Endless Shooter!

Essentially in Real Racing 3, you buy cars and compete in events until you beat the game. There’s also “Driver Level,” in which you are awarded a certain amount of experience points after every race that go towards being an expert driver. I don’t really pay a lot of attention to that, since my only goal is raise as much money as I can so I can buy a new car and race in more events. You rely on “R$” currency and coins to get you through the game. The coins are there so that you can basically buy your way out of having to wait on various things, which I’ll describe here soon.

You might have heard about “Time-Shifted Multiplayer” before. It’s a new feature in Real Racing 3 where you play against real people in every event. Granted, you’re not all playing each other at the same time (hence the “Time-Shifted” name), but the other racers are essentially AI-controlled players that have completed in the event in the past. It’s similar to racing a ghost, but the ghost is AI-controlled and will respond to your movements in the race. It’s a pretty neat feature, and it’s more enjoyable this way knowing that you’re not just racing against the computer.

There are numerous types of races to choose from, including cup races, top-speed challenges, drag races, sprints, and eliminations. There also tons of new tracks and cars, including real tracks like the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Mount Panorama, as well as fake tracks that exist in real locations, such as Melbourne. As for controls, it’s nothing that we haven’t experienced before with Real Racing 2 — tilting your mobile device steers the car, and tapping on the screen is the brake. You can also change camera angles, which includes a cockpit view if you really want a realistic experience.

As for graphics, they’re not bad, but also not great. There’s absolutely zero anti-aliasing, which makes the game a pixelated nightmare, and scenery could be a bit better, especially in Mount Panorama, where you can get a good look out at the horizon. The mountains in the background look pretty horrible, and it makes you feel you traveled back in time to the late 90s. However, I can’t be too harsh on the graphics. For a mobile game on a smartphone, the game looks pretty incredible.

As for the freemium model in Real Racing 3, this is where things can get a bit controversial. Since the game is free, Firemonkey and EA rely on the in-app purchases of coins to make revenue. Whenever your car needs servicing or you upgrade parts, you have to wait a few minutes for them to complete, sometimes up to 10 minutes. Of course, you can speed the process up by spending a couple of coins, but once you’re all out, you have to buy more if you don’t want to wait for things to finish. Essentially, Firemonkey and EA are counting on your impatience in order to make money with this game, and my guess is that they’ll make a fortune.

You can buy more coins starting at $1.99 for 10 of them, and you can also buy more in-game currency for buying cars and upgrades starting at $1.99 for R$50,000. And considering that Real Racing 2 only cost $4.99, you can end up spending way more in Real Racing 3. However, if patience is your virtue, then you probably won’t have a problem with the game, but if you’re the type of person who wants upgrades now and wants your oil change and tire rotation right this second, prepare to spend a ton of money on the game.

Hardware & Design

First off, the Revolt is packed with high-end hardware. This particular build is running an Intel Core i7 3770K quad-core processor clocked at 3.5GHz with 8GB of DDR3 RAM. It also has NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 graphics, a 120GB Intel SSD, a 1TB Western Digital HDD, and a slot-load DVD burner to top it all off. I’ll be covering the performance aspect of the rig later on, but in brief, this thing absolutely screams.

The case has a white and black theme to it, and it almost looks like it should be an official Portal computer case due to how closely it resembles the whole Portal vibe, which we really like. The front panel has a smooth, glossy black finish and has the “Revolt” name displayed at the top lit up by LEDs. You can actually differentiate each of the LEDs, which could be considered a slight design flaw for picky gamers who prefer to have a smooth and seamless lighting scheme. Other than that, though, the front of the PC has the power button, LED button (to change the LED colors on the side), memory card slot, two USB 3.0 ports, headphone and microphone jacks, and obviously the slot-load DVD drive. The LEDs on the side of the case come in Blue, Green, or Red, and you can cycle through each of the colors with the button on the front. However, it’s important to note that the LEDs oscillate, meaning that they don’t simply just stay on, but they fade in and out.

UPDATE: iBUYPOWER tells us that “the individual LEDs showing through the panel is something [they] are addressing with the final version of the chassis.”

On the back, there are a bevy of connectivity options: four USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, eSATA, PS/2 (for older keyboard and mice), ethernet, various audio jacks, two DVI ports, and HDMI. We’re not quite why this rig has a PS/2 port, since the interface is pretty much extinct, but we can’t say that it’s a burden to have anyway. Simply put, it’s there if you need it. Now, there’s not as many ports as we’ve seen on past top-tier gaming rigs, but most users will be happy with the eight total USB ports, as well as the eSATA and HDMI options.

As far as upgrading the internal components and servicing the machine, iBUYPOWER says that the Revolt is user-serviceable, although we had a grand ‘ole time trying to get the case opened up. However, once we figured it out, it wasn’t too bad. You simply take off the front panel and then slide the side panels back just a bit and it should come right off. It’s all screwless, so there’s no need for tools at this point. However, when you get to the inside, it’s all pretty closed down. The only components with easy access are the storage drives, optical drive, and the power supply (which looks to be similar to a mini ITX power supply, but iBUYPOWER says it’s custom-built). Everything else is buried on the other side, which is accessible, but once you take off the outer side panel, there’s another steel panel in your way that you have to deal with. In the end, if you plan on upgrading this bad boy at some point in the future, be prepared for a long night, unless of course you want to upgrade the storage drives, in which case it’s as easy as sliding them in and out.

Software

The Revolt runs Windows 8, which didn’t seem to give me much problems gaming-wise. I was able to play all the games that I wanted, and Steam seemed to work great on the new OS. Even Call of Duty 4 — which was released well before Windows 8 — played flawlessly on top of Microsoft’s newest operating system. Compatibility is a huge deal for many PC gamers, so seeing Windows 8 handle everything fairly well was a good sign. Of course, Valve’s Gabe Newell thinks Windows 8 is a “catastrophe,” but personally I didn’t have any problems.

As far as bloatware is concerned, many OEM gaming computer companies usually keep it on the down-low when it comes to pre-installed software, and iBUYPOWER is no exception, although you won’t be greeted with a completely-stock version of Windows 8. There are several Intel utilities that come pre-installed, including Control Center, Rapid Storage, Recovery Agent, and Smart Connect. There’s also the THX TruStudio suite, as well as the 3D Vision preview pack and Photo Viewer. Many gamers might not use these programs, but they hardly get in the way, and you can easily disable them from starting up.

Performance

We ended up conducting benchmarks with our go-to benchmarking tool Geekbench, and the results were nothing short of impressive. The Revolt ended up scoring just over a 15,000, which is quite respectable, and frankly, kind of expected thanks to the quad-core i7 and the GTX 670 graphics that we were working with.

The PC played every game that I threw at, all of which were running on medium to high settings. Granted, I didn’t get to play any of the newer games, but I ended up playing a lot of Call of Duty: Black Ops without a problem, as well as Portal 2. The Revolt was able to handle the game wonderfully with little lag or clipping, and I was able to game on for several hours at a time without a hitch. Even after an extended amount of gaming time, the fans inside the rig never picked up speed, and I never noticed the temps go above abnormal levels — it seems that while all the components are crammed into a tiny case, iBUYPOWER made sure that cooling was a priority.

As far as the noise levels, the Revolt is relatively silent. Using my handy-dandy decibel meter app, there was a jump of about 10 decibels. A normal quiet house is just under 40 decibels, and the meter was reading around 47-49 decibels when placed next to the Revolt. Other than that, I had the rig sitting on the floor next to my desk, and I could barely hear the PC running. Granted, it was on the floor and not on my desk (where I’d be able to hear it more), which is where most gamers might put their rigs, but either way, the noise level shouldn’t be a problem. I couldn’t even hear the thrashing of the hard drive, which is a big plus and something that I personally hate.

Wrap-Up

In the end, the Revolt is a solid gaming rig for those that need the power in a smaller package. Of course, many dedicated PC gamers would gladly build their own machine, but for those that are just getting into PC gaming, or aren’t yet brave enough to tackle the building challenge, buying pre-built is the next best option. Of course, stuffing top-tier gaming components into a SFF case isn’t something that most computer builders would even attempt to do, so leaving it to the highly-trained and professional builders at iBUYPOWER may be the way to go if you’re wanting a SFF gaming rig. Pricing for the Revolt starts at $499, which will land you a Core i3, 4GB of RAM, and integrated Intel HD 2500 graphics. This particular build, however, is in the $1,400 range, so you’ll definitely be paying up if you want top performance.

This game has 22 levels, 24 puzzles, and 2 worlds per pack. There are two packs – that’s two applications, the second relying on the first to work – each of them with their own set of 22 levels, 24 puzzles, and 2 worlds. Worlds include Jungle of Amazonas, Mountains of Himalaya, Ruins of Egypt, and the Lost continent of Maralidia, and you get your bird companion Sasha the whole way through. This game takes what the original PC and console iterations brought forth and makes a miraculous re-creation here for the mobile environment.

You’ll be working with our good grave-robbing buddy and his fine feathered friend through this lovely collection of levels AS him or the bird. For bird controls you’ll be using your tablet or smartphone’s entire bulk to fly upward or downward – it’s no easy task! Avoid flying too low into the dust – you’ll get lost!

A couple things you may want to look out for before tossing cash towards this two-part beast download of a game: you need 1GB of space on your device for each half of the game. This is no small requirement, especially if you’ve got an 8GB Nexus 7. You’ll also want to be sure you have the first part of the game before you buy the expansion, as the expansion does not work without the first part. You’ll also want to be aware that this game works ONLY on devices running an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor – if you don’t know if your device does, generally Google Play will tell you, but in this case it appears that it’s only after you’ve made the download that the game itself lets you know – be careful!

This game is intensely immersive, full to the max with mind-bogglingly difficult puzzles and high quality graphics you’ll be surprised your mobile device can work with. It would appear that Fatshark has a winner on their hands as far as gigantic Android games go – just so long as you’ve got the space and patience for it: you’re going to go nuts with puzzling levels of death from start to finish!

This game was introduced for the market the week of Thanksgiving, 2012 – that’s right now, here, at the time of this posting, and here we’ve also got a special promotional price that’s making the download extra enticing. Right now you’ll be able to pick this game up for $4.99 USD – in the future it’s likely to be raised by a buck or two, but for the moment a five-spot will make it yours. It’s developed directly by Marvel Games is ready to not just promote the Avengers movie series, but to be a high-powered game of excellence in and of itself.

Again what you’re looking at in the demo here is the ASUS Transformer Prime, a device that’s more than a few months old but is still one of the most awesome tablets on the market, Tegra 3 and all. This game begins with the Hulk and will be continuing on with updates, special events, and more playable characters and storyline in the future. In other words – this game is set to be a gift that keeps on giving. All “episodic content” updates will be free, mind you – with Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man in the mix for 2013!

Enhancements for NVIDIA Tegra 3-toting devices include improved character textures, slightly more life-like environments, Iso-8 effects (game element with super fun crystal bashing), and realistic clothing – rendering sweetness in-frame! The only thing you might want to be wary of here is the download size – at 1.3 GB, it’s certainly going to be a space-eater you’ll want to think twice about. Otherwise it’s a straight up must-have winner – grab it through the NVIDIA TegraZone right this minute!

Developer: Treyarch
Publisher: Activision
Version tested: Xbox 360

Call of Duty: Black Ops II is technically set in the not-so-distant future. I say “technically” because a good portion of the game’s campaign takes place in the mid-1980s, and the game switches between the past and the future (2025 to be exact) pretty frequently. Before we delve into too many specifics, however, I’ll say this: the story in Black Ops II is pretty ridiculous. You’ll have to suspend your disbelief often, as the story never seems too concerned with sticking within the bounds of realism. The technology the characters use in 2025 is quite a bit more advanced than the tech I think we’ll have in another 12 years, with things like cloaking devices that make humans as close to invisible as possible widely used. There are plenty of twists and turns, too, though those twists never felt as surprising as they should have.

That being said, it isn’t as if the campaign in Black Ops II is lacking charm. Players will chase the beyond evil Raul Menendez – who I must say makes a excellent villain – throughout the decades as he hatches a plan that would quite literally leave the world in shambles. The situations the characters get themselves into may not always seem plausible, but that does allow for some intense sequences and edge-of-your seat moments. Treyarch deserves a pat on the back for never being afraid to shake things up a bit as well – Black Ops II isn’t always about shooting. There will be times when you’re riding on horseback (while holding and shooting a rocket launcher, no less), jumping out of a plane to “parachute” into enemy territory, and flying a jet. Some of these sequences work better than others, but at least they all serve a purpose in giving you something different right when you need a break from the typical run and gun routine.

Alongside the regular campaign missions, you’ll have the opportunity to complete Strike Force missions. These add a little RTS flavor to the first person shooter genre, giving you areas to defend as enemies attack from all sides. You can zoom out to view an overhead map, which allows you to issue orders to multiple units at once. You can also control individual units and jump between them freely, giving you the chance to fight off enemies quickly in the places that need help the most. It’s a cool little mode, but things can get hectic at times, so I think it could prove to be a bit much for some players. If you want to get the best ending though, you’ll have to successfully complete these missions.

In fact, in order to get the best ending, you’ll have to do a lot of things. There are many moments in the game when the path forward is determined by player choice, which means that you’ll have a story with plenty of branching paths. That’s a pretty ambitious for a single-player FPS campaign, and there might even be a few forks in the road that have you hesitant to make a decision. Black Ops II features a total of three different endings, and I was actually surprised by how many variables there were when it came to which ending you see when you beat the game. At least one of those endings seems to leave the door open for a direct sequel, so don’t be surprised if we see a Black Ops III by this time in 2014.

The campaign is decent, but it isn’t going to win any awards. The character models are all pretty solid, though they do have a tendency to look a little wooden and the lip syncing isn’t the best. The environments can range from drab to beautiful, but more often than not the environments impress. There are some issues with textures, though, especially when you get up-close, so the engine that has been in use for years now is showing its age. There seem to be a few lingering bugs that need to be squashed too – for instance, I encountered a few NPCs that appeared to be glitching out and broken, and one instance where the game didn’t allow me to progress. It was at the very end of the game, leaving me with no way to advance or go back until I opened the menu, selected “restart mission,” decided I didn’t want to do that, and went back to the game. When I closed the menu, the way forward magically opened, letting me continue onto the end of the game. It isn’t the biggest problem in the world, but it sure was annoying at the time.

The campaign certainly makes some missteps, but that’s not the main feature of Black Ops II. Multiplayer is where it’s at for most, and that’s the mode that Treyarch really honed in on. Regular old multiplayer is getting a new feature in the way of the Pick 10 system, granting the player 10 points with which to build a load out. This, along with the Wildcard system, allows for a lot of customization between load outs, so you shouldn’t have a problem building one that is tailored to your play style.

Everyone else will have that same edge too, so mulitplayer battles are always pretty intense. There’s something to be said for Call of Duty’s fast-paced gameplay where you can be dead in a second and kill even quicker, and in that respect, the multiplayer mode soars. The matches keep you on your toes, and that’s helped along by the quality of the maps. The maps give players plenty of little nooks and rooms to explore, making for an exciting experience where you never really know what’s waiting for you beyond the bend. I didn’t encounter a map that I didn’t like, though there are some that are clear favorites among the Call of Duty community. These ones are where the most intense battles go down, since each player is familiar with the map and won’t hesitate to use that knowledge to get a leg up on the competition.

Of course, you’re also gaining XP and increasing your rank along the way, unlocking a ton of new items as you do. There’s certainly enough unlockable content to keep you interested in playing and leveling up, which is where I think a game like Black Ops II has an advantage over something like Halo 4. In Halo 4, the number of new items you can unlock as you progress through the game feels a little limited, whereas there are plenty of new weapons and gear to unlock in Black Ops II. Not only do you get new stuff for leveling up yourself, but you’ll also unlock new attachments for individual weapons as you level those up too. It’s a great system, and it’s there for no other reason than to keep players addicted.

At the end of all, it seems pretty safe to say that if you like the multiplayer modes in other Call of Duty games, you’ll probably like this one just as much. You might even like it more, given that the Pick 10 and Wildcard systems add a very fun aspect to building a load out. Given that I was playing this during launch week, I ran into a few server problems, but those were surprisingly few and far between – I was only booted from a game once (though that may have been my fault) and for the most part, finding a match was pretty quick, even when I had my search settings set to “Best Connection.” Make no mistake, we’ll probably see Black Ops II dominating player number charts for months to come thanks to its addictive multiplayer mode that gamers will feel compelled to play.

Black Ops II‘s regular multiplayer mode might just end up taking a backseat to Zombies, however. After years and years of nothing but zombies, I feel pretty comfortable saying that I’m sick of fighting them. At least that’s what I thought before I checked out Zombies in Black Ops II. Zombies, as many of you already know, is a pretty straight forward mode: kill zombies, rack up points, unlock better guns to use, and see how many increasingly difficult waves you and your team mates can survive. In the beginning, you’ll be tricked into thinking that you’ve got everything under control, but once the zombies start coming in a seemingly endless stream, your cool and collected demeanor will rapidly devolve into a state of blubbering panic.

That’s what makes it so damn fun, and the urge to see if you can both make it further and beat your personal best scores will keep you playing Zombies over and over again. I think that Zombies might just be my favorite mode in Black Ops II, which is saying a lot when you consider how good regular multiplayer is.

Zombies mode is not flawless, however. Two new game modes are joining Survival in Black Ops II: Grief and Tranzit. In Grief, your team goes up against another team of four in a battle for survival, but you’re not allowed to actually harm the players on the other team. There are, however, plenty of ways to annoy players on the other team and make the task of killing zombies and staying alive a lot more difficult, hence the name. I like the idea behind Grief, but I’m not sure I like it more than regular Survival. It’s a mode that will need to be expanded upon in future releases (or with content patches) – I look forward to seeing what Treyarch does with Grief in the future, but for now, I think the majority of my Zombies playing will be in Survival mode.

Next we have Tranzit, which is an interesting new mode that’s best described as Survival mode in motion. Players will use a bus to go from hub to hub, fighting off zombie attacks while both stationary and in transit. There are items to collect and a crafting system to use, but if you didn’t know this going in, you’d assume that it’s just Survival mode on a larger scale. Tranzit is a lot like Grief in that I like the underlying idea, but Tranzit just kind of throws you in without indicating what it is you should be doing. Some of the waves you’ll encounter are already pretty vicious, which can make item collecting nigh-on impossible when things start to get really hairy and team mates start going down. It’s definitely an interesting take on Zombies mode, but sometimes Tranzit is guilty of piling on without making objectives clear. That’s bound to be a barrier for some players, which is unfortunate since Tranzit shows a lot of promise despite the fact that it’s a little rough around the edges at the moment.

Wrap-Up

Black Ops II is another solid entry in the Call of Duty series, but if you’ve not been tempted by the franchise before, this probably isn’t going to change anything. On the other hand, if you feel that the series has gotten a little stale in recent years, picking this up may not be a bad idea. Black Ops II is careful not to step too far outside familiar bounds, but there are some new features that make this entry worth checking out.

Of course, if you’re already a Call of Duty fan, you’ll almost certainly love Black Ops II. The campaign is a little weird in that it’s absolutely ridiculous, but there are some sequences that make the story worth playing through. Additionally, it’s one of the only FPS campaigns in recent memory that encourages multiple playthroughs, even if some of the choices feel a little shallow. Strike Force missionsares an excellent way to break things up, and hopefully the folks at both Treyarch and Infinity Ward will try to expand on this further in future games.

Finally, multiplayer is another winner with great maps, a great mechanic in the Pick 10 system, and fast-paced gameplay that will get your blood pumping. As far as I’m concerned, Survival matches in Zombies are excellent, though Grief and Tranzit mode could have both used some more time to simmer. At the end of everything, though, you have to give Treyarch some points for taking risks in a series that’s known for sticking to what works. Some of these risks don’t play out as well as Treyarch probably envisioned, but each one lays down a springboard that could ultimately make future installments better.

So no, Black Ops II is not a masterpiece. It isn’t the best FPS ever, and I doubt it will even be considered the best Call of Duty game. It’s too early to tell, but Black Ops II may just lead to some actual innovation within the series, and that alone is worth celebrating. If nothing else, it’s a very fun ride, so if you’re a fan of first person shooters, I have no problem recommending that you make space on your shelf for Black Ops II.

In Damage Inc: Pacific Squadron WWII, World War II is back, but in this game we see it in a different form. Instead of taking the role of a soldier fighting the battle on the ground, you are a fighter pilot. The sky is your battlefield this time around, and you’ll be spending a lot of time there. Is it good to see a new flight combat game on the scene? Absolutely. Is the time you’ll spend with Damage Inc worthwhile, or is the game a disappointment? That question is a little more difficult to answer.

Developer: Trickstar Games
Publisher: Mad Catz
Version Tested: Xbox 360

Damage Inc picks up immediately before the history-changing events at Pearl Harbor. Life has not been good to you, as your farmer father’s efforts at making a living came up short year after year. Your family eventually moves to the city, your father taking work where he can get it, but all is not well: the Nazi forces in Germany and the Japanese are beginning to rise up, and it isn’t long before war breaks out. You and your brother join the armed forces – you head to the Air Force, and your brother joins up with the Marines. Thus begins the story of Damage Inc, which promises to take you through the “greatest aerial battles of WWII.”

Things start off with a bang, too. After the initial (and necessary) tutorial mission, the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in force, officially flinging the United States into World War II. It’s a hectic battle, and you’ll be tackling various objectives as you try to fight off the Japanese. You’ll be shooting down other fighters, protecting ground troops, escorting other, defenseless planes through the air space, and shooting down more fighters. It sets the tone for the rest of game pretty well, as not only is it a chaotic battle, but it also has you doing a number of different tasks. Damage Inc isn’t just about shooting other planes out of the sky after all, and the battle at Pearl Harbor does a good job at showing you what you’re in for.

After that, you’ll fight your way through a total of 23 different missions in 11 different locations. Damage Inc follows the American fight against Japan from 1941 until 1945, ending with the famous battle at Iwo Jima. As you progress through the game, you’ll unlock brand new planes to use. Planes come in a number of different varieties – you’ll have fighters, dive bombers, torpedo planes, and even the odd reconnaissance plane or fighter jet at your disposal. There are 32 planes in all, and with each one, you can upgrade to different variations buy spending upgrade points you earn for completing missions. The game is pretty generous with upgrade points, and you can earn extra points by completing bonus objectives that can get quite difficult sometimes. Developer Trickstar wants you to upgrade those planes, so it made you sure you always have enough points to do so.

Gameplay is generally pretty solid, as there are quite a few genuinely thrilling moments to be found in this game. Battles can get intense quickly, and as the war continues on, your enemies will be getting better thanks to new planes, just like you. The difficulty builds at a nice steady pace, but you have help from a feature called “Warspeed” to give you an edge. Warspeed allows you speed up your plane or slow it significantly down, which comes in handy when you need to make a quick escape or can’t quite line up a target in your sights.

All the while, you’re treated to something of a history lesson – Mad Catz and Trickstar have been touting the fact that they paid attention to historical accuracy in this game, and I’m pleased to say that it shows. The planes are historically accurate, and after finishing up all the missions in a particular area of the world, we’re given narration from the main character that takes us through the major victories and losses of the war. If you just so happen to be a gamer who is also a history buff, you’ll probably appreciate the work that went into this recounting of the events of World War II.

The visuals are decent, but the environments can get a little on the bland side sometimes. The planes are obviously the most detailed, and overall they look pretty good. Other things, like ships and buildings, aren’t as detailed as the planes, which can make for some pretty ugly visuals when you get up close (which, if you’re like me and crash all the time, happens a lot). Most of the time, however, you’re going to be too busy watching your plane and enemy fighters to notice that your surroundings aren’t as detailed as they could be, so at least the graphics are solid where it matters the most.

While the graphics may leave something to be desired, the sound doesn’t. The game actually has a very good soundtrack, but it tends to get lost in all of the commotion of battle. The planes and the guns sound great as well, and do a lot to help immerse you in the game. There are plenty of explosions to be heard too, so get ready for those.

Sadly, the voice acting isn’t anything to write home about. It isn’t that the voice actors are particularly bad, but they’re lacking emotion most of the time. That’s especially true for the player character, who at times sounds eerily similar to Neil Patrick Harris. The battle at Pearl Harbor is a perfect example of this. There are plenty of reasons to be panicked here – the United States was just forced into World War II and you’re probably going to die today, for instance – and yet our character’s exchanges with Control seem to be cool, calm and collected. There is a ton of chaos in this game, don’t get me wrong, but all of that chaos is lacking a sense of urgency, which is also very important when you should be trying to convey desperation. Remember, the United States didn’t want to get into World War II, and we were pushed into it by a devastating sneak attack from the Japanese. Sadly, as the events of Pearl Harbor unfold right before their eyes, our character and Control discuss objectives as if it were any day other than December 7, 1941.

That isn’t the case for every character in the game however, and the emotion does begin to pick up as we speed toward the events at Iwo Jima. Some of the supporting voice actors are quite good (though some have a tendency to be clichéd and annoying), and later on in the game, our boring player character actually has a few inspired moments of his own. They’re few and far between for the most part, but those moments of emotion are in there.

Once you’ve finished the single player campaign, there’s a multiplayer mode for you to tackle. Multiplayer consists of a variety of different game modes, but the usual suspects such as deathmatch and team deathmatch are present, only this time around they’re called “Dogfight” and “Team Dogfight.” All modes support up to eight players, but if by-the-books multiplayer isn’t your thing, there are other modes like Survivor, Team Survivor and Scratch One Flattop.

In Survivor, players start out with a set number of lives, and once your lives are gone, you’re out of the game. Team Survivor is the same idea, only you’re on a team instead of going it alone. Scratch One Flattop is a particularly interesting team-based mode that has you working with your team mates as you attempt to take out the other team’s aircraft carrier. This means that you’ll need torpedo planes and dive bombers to do damage to the carrier while your fighters keep the bombers safe. It forces you to work as a team, and since aircraft carriers are able to take a lot of damage before going down, it can make for some pretty tense battles.

Of course, multiplayer battles are tense anyway, because here actual humans are controlling the other planes. While the AI can be quite tricky at times, after becoming more familiar with the game, it gets easier to lead your shots and take down the computer-controlled opponents quickly. You won’t always have that luxury with human opponents; some will naturally be easy to take down, but you’ll be endlessly chasing others all across the battlefield as they try to shake you off their tail. Multiplayer will offer a challenge to players who have seen all there is to see in the campaign, and it also has the added bonus of being fun. If competitive multiplayer isn’t your thing, you can team up with up to three other friends for some co-op play. This mode is only available over the Internet, meaning that there unfortunately isn’t any couch co-op, which is arguably the best kind of co-op.

Disappointingly, this game suffers from a number of bugs. Occasionally, I would have the cutscenes produce nothing but this awful screeching static noise, which as you can imagine is quite jarring and terrifying when you’re wearing headphones. Sometimes after a cutscene had played, the camera would lock down and I wouldn’t be able to do anything other than restart from the most recent checkpoint. There were times when my plane didn’t make any noise at all, and when that happened, my bullets didn’t do any damage. I also experienced one or two instances where my objective seemed to disappear entirely from the map, meaning I couldn’t destroy it and progress through the rest of the mission. These bugs didn’t occur all the time, but they happened enough to be worthy of noting.

Saitek Pacific AV8R Flight Stick & Control

Any fan of aerial combat games (or flying simulators for that matter) will tell you that good controls are paramount. Included with the Collector’s Edition of Damage Inc is the Saitek AV8R Flight Stick, and the game is actually compatible with all Saitek flight sticks. The flight stick is a nice piece of equipment, but it does feel a little on the light side. On the stick itself, you of course have a trigger – the A button – along with the B, X, and Y buttons on the head of the stick. LB, RB, LT and RT have been turned into switches on the front of the flight stick, with a little nub in the middle that serves as the D-Pad. On the back of the stick is a lever for controlling the speed of the plane, and the Start, Select and Xbox Guide buttons are present as well.

Damage Inc comes with two different control modes – arcade and simulation. Those new to flying games will want to start with the arcade settings, while those who have been “flying” for years will probably be fine just jumping into simulation mode. Mad Catz recommends that the AV8R is used in simulation mode, and in simulation mode, it does indeed work best. Arcade mode works better with a controller, whereas simulation mode was made to played with a flight stick. Obviously, simulation mode’s controls are much more complex than arcade’s, but the result is that you have more precise control over your aircraft.

Die-hard flying game fans will want to pick up the AV8R, because overall it isn’t a bad flight stick. It’s comfortable and easy to use, and it means that you don’t have to play the game with a traditional controller. Even though Mad Catz and Trickstar are really pushing the AV8R with Damage Inc, it isn’t required to play the game at all, and both arcade mode and simulation mode work just fine with a regular controller. The game is just as enjoyable no matter which control method you use, though some passionate players are likely to get a little more fun out of the game by using the flight stick.

Wrap-Up

Despite Damage Inc’s flaws, which can be quite severe at times, I can’t help but like it. It isn’t the best flying game we’ve ever seen, nor is it the most polished – not even close. But it does have a certain charm to it that you don’t often find in other games. This game offers a number of thrills and exciting moments, and even though it’s lacking in other areas, having a game that’s fun to play is ultimately the most important part of the equation.

The game is fun too, when it’s working properly. It can also be incredibly frustrating at times, because there are some objectives that require your timing and shooting to be spot-on. There will likely be a few times that you’ll find yourself attempting an objective over and over again, but that difficulty doesn’t come from the fact that the AI is overpowered and you’re underpowered, as is the case in so many games these days. Rather, this game requires skill, and maybe a little bit of luck when it comes to getting those shots perfect. That is definitely appreciated, as it really gives you a feeling of accomplishment once you finally succeed.

I can’t recommend this game to everybody though. World War II and history enthusiasts, have at it. The same goes for flying and combat fans. For those players, the game will be fun and interesting enough that they probably won’t have a problem forgiving the game’s less-polished aspects. For everyone else, however, this is one of those instances where it’s a good idea to rent it before you buy it, just to make sure you can live with its flaws.

All in all, Damage Inc: Pacific Squadron WWII is a solid game with a few glaring issues holding it back from greatness. It’s still a fun game though, so if you’re hankering for some aerial combat action, you’ll probably be satisfied with Damage Inc.

Hardware

Take the 3DS, swap some ports around, and make everything a little big bigger. That’s a gross generalization, but also the core of what Nintendo has done with the console. The reason for the supersizing simply seems to be ease of access: children and elderly gamers will be able to grip the console with ease, and the larger screens also makes things easier to see. Nintendo has made some tweaks to the design, though, with the glossy plastic of the 3DS being sidelined, and corners appearing more rounded and less angular.

As a result, the console is much easier to grip than its predecessor, and is generally more comfortable to use in operation. The physical controls of the device are a joy to use as well, wth the joystick swiftly moving around its axis without sticking at all, and the quartet of buttons on the right hand side giving great feedback. The same can’t quite be said about the L and R buttons, which don’t quite have enough feedback and feel a little loose. Nintendo has also tweaked the Select, Home, and Start buttons found below the bottom screen: the large, chunky, plastic buttons are far easier to press on the 3DS XL compared to the 3DS.

Going around the device, you’ll find that the 3.5mm headphone jack has been repositioned from center bottom to the far bottom left, a curious decision considering it’s where part of your hand will rest while holding the XL. The SD card slot has also been relocated to the right hand side, next to the stylus holder, and the sliders for the volume, wireless, and 3D switches have all been tweaked ever so slightly.

There’s no denying, however, that this is a chunky and heavy device at 22mm and 336g. The XL may only be 1mm thicker compared to the 3DS, but it’s also 100g heavier. Carrying it around in a jacket pocket or the back of your jeans can be somewhat laboriously, although we’ll commend Nintendo on getting the balance of the device correct when the screen has been flipped open.

Speaking of those screens, they’ve both increased dramatically in size. The top screen has been increased to 4.88-inches, up from 3.53-inches, while the bottom screen has jumped to 4.18-inches, coming in at 3.02-inches on the original 3DS. What hasn’t changed, however, is the resolution, with 800×240 and 320×240 respectively. Both have low pixel densities, resulting in a generally unpleasant experience even from a normal viewing distance, something which we can’t show you thanks to a close-up photography ban by Nintendo. The fact that the company is restricting close-up videos and photos of the handheld while it’s turned on should give you an idea of the screen quality. The viewing angles aren’t great either, so you’ll need to click the top half of the screen in just the right position to get the best image.

The system is still charged using Nintendo’s proprietary charger, but here’s the kicker: you don’t even get one in the box anymore. Nintendo claims that in order to keep costs on the console low, it’s had to forgo including a charger in the retail package, a move which is bonkers. No doubt there will be those who are moving up from a previous Nintendo handheld who will have the necessary charger, but is the company seriously going to neglect first time buyers? Both the front and back of the box do warn customers about the lack of charger, but it leaves a sour taste in the mouth nonetheless.

3D

The first time we witnessed the three-dimensional powers of the 3DS was through a demo given by an employee in a retail store briefly after the handheld launched. A quick fondle showed that while the effect did work, it wasn’t particularly immersive, and the effect could be broken far too easily. The same is true of the 3DS XL, and in our several days of usage we pretty much always had the 3D effect turned off.

The fundamental problem with the 3D on Nintendo’s handhelds is that it’s far too finicky to set up and maintain. The slider needs to be adjusted into just the right position; you need to be directly facing the console, with any kind of off-angle ruining the effect; if you finally manage to get a satisfactory depth to the image in your game (which can be highly dependant on how the game was designed in the first place), you need to remain perfectly still in order to maintain the illusion. Any movement at all, and you’ll shatter the effect. Maybe we’re cynical about the idea of 3D in general, but after extended use it’s clear that Nintendo has tried to shoehorn the idea into a portable console and served up average results at best.

Games

Nintendo provided up with one game for review, Kid Icarus Uprising, although the platform has amassed a healthy collection of titles since its launch last year. As is increasingly the case these days, if you’re buying into a Nintendo ecosystem you’re doing so for the first-party games, with the company offering classics such as Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D and new reimaginings such as Super Mario Bros 2.

As for Kid Icarus, it’s a mixed bag. Levels in the game split different styles of gameplay, with the first five minutes dedicated to an on-rails shooting section that sees Pit guided by the goddess Palutena. This handles pretty much exactly as you would expect, with you moving Pit around the screen using the circle pad to control the character while the L and A buttons handle firing duties. Taking out every enemy on the screen is the name of the game as you avoid obstacles and collect power ups, and the level design can occasionally make great use of the 3D capabilities. For the most part though, you’re better off sticking to 2D.

Palutena can only sustain Pit for five minutes of flight. After that, you’re directed to the ground for the second part of the level, giving you full running control and allow you to explore 360 degree environment. The problem comes with the control scheme: while you can make Pit run with the circle pad and fire with L or A as normal, you have to change his orientation using the stylus on the bottom screen.

It’s an awkward and convoluted control scheme that handles poorly, to say the least. You’ll be left gripping and supporting the full weight of the console in your left hand while trying to turn Pit with the stylus in your right hand. Trying to turn the character is a tedious affair, requiring hefty drags across the screen that also require a firm press thanks to the resistive technology. Resting the console on a flat surface helps immensely, and the game is even supposed to come with a stand that helps make it easier to play, although we didn’t receive one with our review unit. Both the control scheme and dedicated stand directly contradict the portability of the console, and we really have to wonder why Nintendo and the developers opted for such a janky and overall poor experience.

The game has a certain visual charm to it, featuring bright colors, cartoonish designs, and a dash of 2D animation on the bottom screen for character interactions, but the ridiculously aliased graphics during gameplay can’t go without mention. We realize that the Nintendo experience has never been about top of the line graphics, but there needs to be some sort of visual polish in a world dominated by high-end smartphones and tablets.

Battery

Nintendo say that the 3DS XL’s battery life should be much improved over the previous offering, sitting between 3 and 6.5 hours of gameplay depending on your settings. DS titles should last a little longer thanks to their more modest graphics, eeking out between 5 and 8 hours of gameplay.

In our test, we put the screen brightness to maximum, turned WiFi off, set to the volume of the speakers to 50%, and made sure our 3D slider was firmly in the 2D position. A quick marathon session of Kid Icarus saw the console lasting around 4 hours and 40 minutes before switching off automatically. That falls in line with Nintendo’s expectations, and you can expect to squeeze a bit more out of the battery should you drop the screen brightness.

Wrap-Up

The 3DS XL brings small improvements over the 3DS, but they all add up to a better handheld overall. It may be heavier, but the screens make for a more impressive experience, the console is easier to handle, and the battery has seen a much needed improvement. If you own a 3DS that’s starting to look a little old, then it’s worth jumping up to the 3DS XL for the better screens and battery life. If you’re on one of Nintendo’s older handhelds and have been hesitant about making the jump, the 3DS XL proves that the water is fine and that it’s time to jump in.

The handheld makes sense if you’ve already bought into Nintendo’s ecosystem, but it’s a hard sell for first time buyers. Nintendo has a fundamental problem on its hands, and it’s this: the 3DS XL and its games don’t exist in a vacuum. Smartphones and tablets offer cheaper games that can distract you just as well as titles from first-party developers fronted by Nintendo or Sony. The former company is hoping that its all star heros and franchises can continue to prop up revenue, while the latter is focused on specs and the merging of physical and touch controls. Neither realize that the game has changed, and that the world doesn’t necessarily need yet another device for portable gaming anymore.

The flipside of the argument is that iOS and Android games don’t have the immersive stories or strong characters and franchises that a company like Nintendo can offer. There is no Zelda or Mario equivalent on mobile devices, sure, but the company can’t ignore the looming threat of smartphones and tablets forever. Nintendo’s inability to adapt and tap into such a vast market is frustrating, and the 3DS XL is the physical representation of its archaic view of the mobile gaming landscape. There may be one or two games that will entice you to the platform, but why reward a company that’s stuck in the past?

Hardware

The actual casing and set of ports is extremely similar to other Acer models such as the AM3970 – though that model is made much more for the everyday user while this Predator unit brings on a shape and color scheme much more suited to the gaming-specific user. Sharp angles are clear to be seen all around the unit while bright fire orange stripes run up and over so you’re ready to race.

Up on top you’ve got what Acer calls their Multi-in-One digital media card reader with essentially every sort of card port you can imagine. Though if you’re a modern gamer you’ll probably either be using disks or digital downloads, these will come in extremely handy when you switch camera types or are handed a strange card from a friend full of photos of your last LAN party – if you’re the kind of person to take photos at such an event, of course.

Also on top are 2 USB 3.0 ports and 2 USB 2.0 ports as well as a mic port and a headphones port. On the back you’ll see every sort of port you could need to get off the ground for a fabulous one-display gaming experience. This includes a couple of covered ports in our build that you’ll be able to have active should you choose them for your build (you might want that display port, for instance), but we’re perfectly alright with using the DVI Video and HD-capable HDMI ports for now.

Included with this tower, as it is with most/all Acer desktop units, you’ll get a pretty standard USB keyboard and optical mouse if you’re currently going without. They work fine, but you might want to think about an upgrade if you’re actually going to go hardcore with your gaming love. Also included inside are 10/100/1000 Gigabit LAN and 802.11b/g/n Wireless for some sweet connections, and High Definition 5.1 Channel Audio Support ready to go as well if you’ve got a massive room you want to fill with the crunching bone sounds of your digital enemies.

Up front we’ve got a 16X DVD+R/RW SuperMulti Drive, inside a 2TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive, and the whole bit is running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit – and of course it’s upgradable to Windows 8 if you do so choose in the near future. Inside we’ve also got the lovely NVIDIA GeForce GT630 Graphics with 2GB Discrete Video Memory as well as a 2TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive, Intel B75 Express Chipset, and again, that lovely new Ivy Bridge i7.

Have a peek at the results from our standard for desktop and notebook computing benchmarks, Geekbench, and certainly feel free to peruse the rest of our results from similar units in our Desktop Reviews portal. You’ll find that this device is right on the cutting edge when it comes to manufacturer assembled units, and

Have a peek at a few more details on the system in this readout as well:

Wrap-Up

In the end, what you’ve got here is an Acer machine, through and through, in an iteration aimed directly at the most high-powered and graphics intensive games you’ve got on hand. We’ve played everything from Diablo III to Batman: Arkham City on this device and have found that be it masses of characters smashing up the display or a vast playable world with realism in abundance, you’ll still be running strong.

The unit we’re using here will cost you a cool $1199.99 from Acer’s online store and it is indeed in stock right now. Head to our timeline below as well to check out additional Acer reveals and hands-on experiences we’ve had in the past couple of weeks!

The last time we had our hands on a model like this, it was essentially the same model on the outside, but inside it was just a little weaker. Have a peek at our Batman Arkham City review to see what was going on back then. Now we’ve got the same model on the whole, with a case that’s 1.75 inches thick, it weighs in at 10.6 pounds, and the whole thing is covered with soft plastic that’s almost rubbery.

On the sides you’ve got a massive amount of ports, with a VGA port, HDMI-out, HDMI-in, two USB 3.0 ports, headphone, headset, and microphone jacks, eSATA/USB port, Mini DisplayPort, and Gigabit ethernet port. That big slot on the right is ready to roll with Blu-ray, you’ve got a multi-format card reader, and on the back you’ve got a power port that’s certainly not made to be used on the go. The power cord falls out all the time with just a tug. The plus side of this is that it’s just fine if you’d rather have a tiny cord fall down on your child’s head than the whole massive hunk that would otherwise come with it.

While the popular thing to do today in the computing market is to present a small computer, a tiny laptop with power, yes, but appearing to replicate what the MacBook Air has done for style, this Alienware machine is in a class all its own. It makes no qualms with being massive, and certainly has an aesthetic that screams “gamer”.

What’s changed in this model specifically over the last is the innards: you’ve got support for a 2.6GHz Core i7-3720QM processor, you’ve got a brand new 28nm NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M GPU, and you’ve got a 500GB hard drive working with your 32GB mSATA solid state cache. Have a peek at some benchmark numbers to understand what kind of power you’ve got running under this massive hood:

What you’ve got here is a true gaming laptop, if there is such a thing. Dell’s Alienware family is certainly one of the best if not the absolute best in class option for rocking and rolling with not only gaming power, but a gaming look as well. This is easily one of the most powerful notebooks on the market today, and it is as high quality as it gets for a does-everything piece of hardware made for media.

This computer is made to be kept plugged in, but even unplugged it’ll last you up to four hours easily. Play Diablo III all night long – or until a new patch from Blizzard kicks you offline as they have been all too often recently – then head on over to Batman again to keep up the unbelievably smooth graphics action until the morning light.

When you’re not playing games, you’ll have no trouble using this Alienware notebook as a workhorse, and a completely customizable one (as far as looks go) at that. This as well as the rest of the Alienware notebooks come with a customization suite which allows all of the segments of color throughout the machine to be changed according to your specific desires. Back up your machine with AlienRespawn, get all of your system diagnostics in style with AlienAutopsy, and run your whole machine’s heart from Alienware Command.

This machine is just as up-to-date as it was when it was first released, and with the upgrades we’ve got here under the hood, you’ll be good to go for all games at any level to be played without a hitch for years to come. Pick this machine up at Alienware’s online shop right now with a variety of customizability options right off the bat. Grab it!

BONUS: Here’s our results with the build we had previously before the 3rd Generation Intel Core processor lineup was integrated. The power!

This set comes with 480 peices and will allow you to work in a couple shades of gray, brown, tan, red, blue, green, and transparent. Because there are at least a handful of colors that do not exist in this set, we must assume more Minecraft is on the way in the near or distant future. There are several pieces in this set with cross-shaped holes that are connected to one another with four poles. This allows you to create a set that you can separate into four bits, put together, and easily access again with a simple tug.

This way you’re able to tunnel underground if you wish and push in your loving double dose of character goodness: Steve and one little green creeper. Both of these characters come in the form of several tiny blocks – square of course! You’ll be able to combine this set with any and all Lego sets you’ve already got if you wish, but we recommend keeping every single piece completely separate. This is a collector’s item and should definitely be treated as such!

This set will be coming your way immediately if not soon for $34.99 – and I suggest you buy it where you can find it! It’s a perfect combination of nerd excellence in every way – and it’s just so much fun! Have a peek at our hands-on photos above and below and let us know if you’ve got any questions, as always!

Hardware

Our Powerbox review unit had the latest and definitely greatest in gaming hardware, complete with an Intel Core i7-3820 CPU running at 3.6Ghz, a monster NVIDIA GTX 690 GPU (with an MSRP of about a thousand dollars all by itself), and an Asrock EXTREME4-M Micro-ATX x79 motherboard. But that’s all details (and all configurable, by the way): the stars of the show are the memory and storage. In addition to a massive 1.5 terabyte storage drive made up of two Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drives in a RAID 0 configuration, there’s an 240GB OCZ Revodrive 3X2 SSD that sits in one of the PCI-E bays to hold the Windows partition.

But the pride and joy of the Powerbox is its RAMDisk, a permanently active 20GB partition that sits on the machine’s 32GB of DDR3 memory leaving 6GB for system use. (4GB each is dedicated to the PCI-E and hybrid drive caches.) Ours came in four 8GB Corsair DIMMs. The Windows pagefile, TEMP directory and IE and Chrome browsers sit on the RAMDisk by default for maximum performance. The read speeds for the RAMDisk is an amazing 8GB per second, at least theoretically.

All of this is wrapped up in a Lian Li case customized with externally mounted fans (plus another three inside, with two dedicated to the liquid-cooled CPU) to accommodate all of this high-end hardware, plus a 750 watt Thermaltake modular power supply. The case and motherboard combo allows for double USB 3.0 connections on the front and  two more around back, another six USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA and one Firewire port, SPDIF and 5.1 audio right off the motherboard, and two PS/2 ports for you old school types.

Altogether our configuration of the Powerbox came to a cringe-inducing $4,463, with basic configurations starting at $2,999 with a 10GB RAMDisk, 260GB PCI-ESSD and a GTX 680. Yes, you could certainly build it yourself for less, but this is for gamers who want the bang in an all-in one package. For those of you who are builders, be aware that due to the design of the Lian-Li case and the size of the components, modification will not be easy – you’ve got to remove the PSU and most of the intricately arranged cabling in order to access any of the components.

Software

The Powerbox comes with Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, and not much else. However, there’s some considerable modifications done in order to maximize performance. In addition to the browser, pagefile and cache moves mentioned above, the box comes pre-loaded with a full version of Primo Ramdisk Ultimate Edition, for switching the RAMDisk from Direct-IO to SCSI mode and back again, among other things. You’ll also get a free copy of SuperSpeed Disk Cache, the two utilities totaling a value of $200. In addition to the basic tools that come along with the drivers, you get AsRock’s XFastUSB tool for dynamic monitoring and boosting of the motherboard’s USB 3.0 ports. Some inoffensive software like Chrome, Flash player and Paint.net is pre-loaded.

It must be said that the RAMRod’s non-standard storage and memory usage created some stability issues. Older drivers for the GTX 690 graphics card may have contributed to this, since they (mostly) went away after I installed new ones. Even so, there were more hang-ups and freezes than we like to see on a modern system.

Performance

This is what you came to see. What’s the point in spending thousands of dollars on a gaming PC if it doesn’t beat all comers, right? Well, the basic performance of the RAMRod Powerbox doesn’t disappoint. In our standard Geekbench test, the Powerbox beat everything except the new HP z420 workstation, and that’s running off of a newer-generation Xeon octo-core processor, so we’re inclined to be generous.

The really impressive scores here are for storage. We’ve included the new Anvil benchmark for the hybrid storage drive in the gallery below, but the star of the show is the 20GB RAMDisk. In the benchmark the RAMDisk read consistently above 4GB per second, with write speeds nearing the 3GB mark. Also note the Input-Output Per Second score of 1.1 million read, and over 700,000 write – according to DV Nation, no other gaming system can match it, and we’re not arguing.

The PCI-E system drive is impressively fast in its own right, with reads consistently going over 1GB per second and breaking 4GB on the 128K file test. Write speeds were somewhat poorer, but the input/output score was an impressive 665,744 . If you’re swimming in numbers right now, consider that the average Ultrabook with a standard SATA SSD gets about one tenth the scores of this system drive. You can see the 3DMark and PCMark scores, along with a few other benchmarks, in the gallery below.

But what did this do for games? Needless to say, the combination of some of the best components money can buy led to buttery smooth framerates on just about every game we tried. On a 1920×1200 monitor with every setting and switch set to its highest, plus V-sync enabled, the framerate never dropped below 60. With V-Sync off, we got eye-popping framerate scores of an average of 114 in the original Crysis, 124 in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, 131 in Batman: Arkham City, and 111 in Grand Theft Auto IV. We’re not the most demanding of gamers here at SlashGear, but suffice it to say, the Powerbox in this configuration can produce graphics better and faster than most people’s eyes can actually see, and with this level of hardware this is likely to remain the case for at least two or three years.

A note on some of the more physical aspects of the Powerbox: it’s loud. Very loud, and surprisingly so for a system of this size. But then you need to take into account the externally mounted fans and the high temperatures inside such a compressed build – there’s not a whole lot that can be done about it, even with the addition of Intel’s first-party liquid cooling. Those of you who plan to do your own upgrades beyond the graphics card and storage drives should do your homework beforehand.

Value

Make no mistake, this is a fantastically expensive gaming machine. Were I going to order it for myself, I’d opt for the full-sized tower with an Antec case, just because it’s easier to work with and probably quieter. That said, if you’ve got the money and the inclination (and if you’ve got a significant other, some impressive negotiation skills) then more power to you. Those who need a machine that’s semi-portable will be happier with what DV Nation calls the “SFF” Lian Li version, but be careful when moving it, as it still weighs in at about 30 pounds.

Wrap Up

Got a few thousand dollars you’re not doing anything with? Want the fastest storage that money can buy, convincingly disguised as a Windows gaming machine? Does the sound of case fans and GPU coolers lull you to sleep at night? Then DV Nation’s RAMRod Powerbox might just be your dream machine. It’s not cheap, it’s not subtle, and it’s certainly not for everyone, but as boutique gaming machines go, it’s hard to compete with. You can order one at their website.

Hardware

There’s little that a person in my position, being one who reviews buckets of mobile devices such at tablets and smartphones each month along with stereo equipment, mobile apps, and the like, about the hardware here being anything but superior. Superior to the relatively low-quality state of the physical buttons on smartphones, that is. When you handle essentially any modern smartphone with a fold-out keyboard, you’ll find that the software doesn’t exactly keep that hardware in mind when it works in the future state of the touchscreen-only mobile environment.

The PS Vita’s hardware works perfectly in sync with the software and this system not only has a collection of buttons and joysticks that work perfectly well, they harmonize in an awesome way with the two touch surfaces (on front and back) of the device. The best way to show you how the hardware functions well on this device is to let you in on a couple of games we’ve tested that show the full functionality – the first being “Escape Plan” which instantly shows you the oddity – and awesomeness – of the back touch panel.

The rest of the controls you can see lower in this review in the Games section – we’ve got Mod Nation Racers Roadtrip (a racing game, imagine that,) and Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 (a fighting game, of course,) to show you the full range of buttons taps and knob pulls. The only complaint I’ve got with the device in the way of hardware is the proprietary plug at the bottom of the device going out to USB – simply because it can be plugged in the wrong way without you knowing it. You’ve got to make sure the PlayStation logo is facing forward or nothing will happen.

There’s also the fact that this system has expandable memory that’s made specifically for Sony devices and is not cross-compatible with any other non-Sony system. This is a bummer for those of you with relatively giant 32GB cards that cost you $25 online while a similarly sized unit will cost you $100 in Sony memory card form. That said, the card we’ve got works perfectly well and can be replaced readily, switched and utilized.

The system feels natural to use, Sony clearly took a good amount of time testing the way a person plays a game, holds a controller, and is able to interact with the screen for this system. The only controller or handheld gaming unit I’ve used that feels better than this one to use is the original PlayStation controller itself – nothing will ever be as good as that, ever. This is the next best thing.

The display is amazing, has perfect viewing angles down to the smallest sliver, and is as sharp as I could ever ask it to be for how much the system costs. If weeks or months down the line any of the buttons change quality – get loose, start to stick, anything like that, I’ll come back to this review and add a note. Until then, this system is great in touch surfaces, physical buttons, and display brightness.

Software

For our full software review, head back to the post PS Vita OS Review your humble narrator posted earlier this week. You’ll find that not only is this a system that’s impressive enough to wow us here on the PS Vita itself, it appears that it’s preparing to move to other hardware as well. It would not surprise me to see a PS Vita smartphone inside the next 12 months – not one bit. It’s great stuff! Have a look at how it works in part here in the intro and the app “Welcome Part” :

Then check out the Camera and Web Browser here, taking special care to note that the camera is not made to be used on a regular basis, instead mostly made to interact with future games that will interact with it.

Then note that you’re able to purchase a massive amount of games and videos (or rent videos, if that’s your thing) from the PlayStation Store. This store allows you to purchase games made specifically for the PS Vita, legacy games from the PSP, and minis, not to mention apps like Netflix. Games can be downloaded with Wifi or through your 3G connection, both working fine and slick – though for the larger games, of course, you really will want to be going with Wifi.

You’ll find that the PlayStation Store is fine for downloading apps you’ve already seen previews of outside the PS Vita itself, but that it still has many of the same problems that other mobile console app stores have: namely the ability to discover great apps (though it does improve upon this over other stores with the all-powerful sale section) and a complete lack of previews of games. No screenshots, no videos, nothing. We’re hoping for an update to this bit in the near future, otherwise adoption of new games will continue to be scant.

Games

The games we’ve played have been massively impressive and entertaining without a doubt, and that goes for both games downloaded from the PlayStation Store as well as the cartridge games that have been released at the launch here in the first week. First have a peek at the next step in one of the most epic fighting game lines in history: Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3. And note that I certainly should have picked Ghost Rider instead of the Hulk – silly me!

Then check out the racing game Mod Nation Racers Roadtrip. This game would have been the ultimate come-up on the Mario Cart-like line of games on its own, but it adds an undeniably entertaining set of customization elements including the ability to create your own racer character, your own vehicle, and your own racing track. That’s the whole shebang! The racing then is both intuitive with the controls you’re given – all of the buttons utilized! – As well as being downright fun on this platform.

This is the same on each game we’ve played thus far. It’s going to be difficult to find a game that isn’t just fun to try out here on this new system, especially since the controls are, again, very intuitive and comfortable to use. One drawback over playing games on your smartphone instead is the loading times. You’ll see several times in the hands-on videos above that there’s more than enough time for you to head to the kitchen to get a snack while your game loads up after you’ve started it.

Daily Use

I’ve tried to stick the PS Vita in my pocket to bring it to a restaurant, attempted to play it while a passenger in the car, and used it on the bus. The last of these three things was great except for the fact that I felt like holding such a gigantic and bright-screened device invited a mugging on my person. Playing it in the car is great if you’re often finding yourself a passenger, but me being a husband and a father, I’m either driving or having a conversation with my wife or child – so there’s really no time for me to use this device. The same goes for a restaurant setting: I’ve gotta be feeding my child or speaking with the people I went out to eat with.

So when would a person find time to use this device? I’m really not sure. If you’ve been using some other kind of handheld gaming system and have a use for it, this might be great for you for an upgrade. If you’re thinking about getting into mobile gaming, I’m not so sure you’re going to have an easy time adapting to it. You have to find time to use this device unless you just so happen to be this system’s real target audience: high-school students. In that case – play it all day long, it’s great!

Wrap-up

This device is without a doubt the most advanced and awesome mobile gamine unit in the short history of mobile gaming units. The Nintendo 3DS looks and plays like an inexpensive toy compared to this fully-fledged PlayStation packed into a mobile unit. You’ve got the ability to play console-level games here, and it’s no joke.

In addition, you could potentially use this as your one “smart” device if you don’t already have a tablet or a smartphone and want one just for the data. Hook it up with some AT&T 3G and enjoy the certainly capable browser and keyboard, watch some Netflix, and play a game or two while you’re at it. This is a unique piece of hardware with controls you wont find anywhere else, and it’s got a store that’s more than able to satisfy your needs for digital content, be it games or videos or basic apps.

Should you buy it? Sure, why not? There’s one whole heck of a lot of things you can do with this entirely versatile piece of hardware with its above average operating system, and it certainly has a future and a strong present! Have at it!

What you get with GeoSociety is not only the same basic set of controls you get with Pokemon, but the same general plot line as well. All the strage components are there, from you waking up in your mothers house without a clue of what you’re supposed to do in the world to your very own training center where you choose from one of three monsters to carry around with you the rest of the game! The big difference is in the details: there’s no Gary, for example, to annoy you throughout the game.

You still get to battle, to collect monsters throughout the game to do battle with – you even get to explore the world with essentially the same pixel-heavy graphics that the Pokemon franchise has loved for so long. The battle sequence is also turn-based, you can choose which moves your monster is doing, and you battle both wild monsters as well as other human opponents with their own contenders. Then there’s the bonuses: like being able to run instead of having to walk through the whole game. No need for a bike!

This game will cost you $1.99 on the App Store right this second and I can’t believe how fun it really, really is. I’ve literally not had this much Pokemon-related fun since I played Pokemon Red on my original GameBoy. Grab it!

Home Screens

There are two screens from whens you can access your apps, the first being your home screen. The home screen is comprised of as many panels as you wish, each having room for 10 total shortcuts to apps or features. To the left of your home screens you’ll see some dots, these dots showing you which of your several home screens you’re currently active in. If you’ve got any core applications open, you’ll also be able to see an arrow pointing to the right – this arrow leads you to your LiveArea Screens.

LiveArea Screens

This is the second screen that you’ll be able to access apps from after your home screen. Here you’ll find a series of cards called LiveArea Screens that each have a core app in them, each core app given a card like this for various possible reasons. Each Screen (or card) is activated by tapping (and is accessed via the bubbles on your home screens as well) and has a “start” button in the center if you simply want to get to the app itself surrounded by various items that can range from leaderboard scores, tips, instant connections to friend nearby, and a display of who is playing the game (if it is a game) when you’re looking at it.

In the upper right-hand corner of each LiveArea Screen is a folded back corner – peel it back with your finger to take the app out of the LiveArea and exit the app altogether. If an app is in the LiveArea Screens, that means it is open and functioning. If it is not, you’ve exited and it is closed.

Lock Screen

As a sort of foreshadowing of what’s to come, the first screen you see when you turn the device on from sleep is the lock screen with the same sort of peel-back feature as your LiveArena Screens. Here you’ll also see a clock and date and your top bar minus your Notifications bubble. Peek this screen back like a sticker to get into Vita OS.

Notifications

The top bar of Vita OS looks extremely similar to Android and displays information basically in the same way. The difference is that when you’ve got apps open, you can see a line of them represented by tiny bubbles one next to another. On the very right there’s a bigger bubble that shows you your activities – mostly you’ll be using this to show how far your downloads have come – each notification is also a link to the service it’s informing you about, too, so if you’ve just completed your download of a game or the newest episode of Saturday Night Live, you can head right into it.

Content Manager

As all mobile-based operating systems should, Vita OS has a portal through which you can manage and transfer your files to and from your desktop computer. Through this app on the PS Vita you’re able to copy content to or from your PC or backup, restore, or delete backup files. If you’re transferring files, you get the option of moving photos, music, video, and applications – this including the applications themselves or just the data from them.

Connecting this system to our MacBook Pro, for example, was as easy as a single downloaded application for the laptop, installation process, and instant connection – from there it’s only simple taps on the PS Vita to do any management of files.

Hands-on 1/4 : Intro and Welcome Park

Welcome Park

While some devices come with a set of “quick start” cards and nothing else, Vita OS here on the PlayStation Vita comes with an app called Welcome Park. This app has a user interface that reminds one of the fabulous block-color excellence that went on in the film version of Hitchhikers Guides to the Galaxy for the guide itself – if you’ve never seen it, it’s worth it for the guide sections alone – great GREAT graphic design in full effect.

This app gives you a great look at what the PS Vita hardware is capable of with each different touch and sensor action and shows how Vita OS can bring it all together as well. And this set of lessons is done with games, so it’s great.

Party

In order to sell a PS Vita to every person on earth, Sony has created a set of apps that’ll encourage you to make your friends pick up a unit. One of these apps is Party – in it you’ve got controls that allow you to speak to and engage with your “Party” of friends that have connected to you through this app. Like the rest of the friend-connected apps, this app works through the PlayStation Network and has an ultra-simple interface which allows you to set up or join a party then speak with your friends and join the games they are playing.

Friends

Though its discovery engine is essentially non-existent through the PS Vita itself, the Friends interface is where you’ll be able to connect with friends and edit your own profile on the PlayStation Network. If the Vita OS is going to work out as a standalone operating system on this device that grows through player interaction, your ability to find and connect with other PlayStation Network players through this device itself will have to become more of a reality. Friends does connect directly with “near,” on the other hand.

Hands-on 2/4 : Party / near / Friends / Group Messaging

near

The only built-in app on the system here with the PS Vita to have a lower-cased letter starting its name, near is a GPS location-aware app which allows you to show off what games you’re playing, how well you’re doing at those games, and discover other PS Vita players around you. It’s as simple as that – and should we see more devices adopting Vita OS and near in the future, this will only become more and more exciting as the map will begin to fill up quick.

The LiveArea screen for near is a good example of what’s possible at this halfway step between homescreen and app – options!

Group Messaging

This app allows you to send messages out to your friends without needing to be in a Party. While a Party is made more for events that last for a short period of time, Group Messaging works more like texting where it doesn’t matter if a person is actively engaged on their device at the time the message is sent or not. It’s here that you may very well start to notice that the keyboard you’re using is not that unlike Android’s own most recent couple of iterations of a keyboard: switch to alternate keys with the option keys in the lower left, get a satisfying “tic” noise for every button tap.

Trophies

Like each of the other devices you’ve got connected to the PlayStation Network (ie your PlayStation 3), you’ve got this space to check out your awesome accomplishments for each game that you’ve got on your device. You can either just bask in the warm glow of your own trophies here or compare with people you’ve connected with in Friends.

Photos

From the photos app you’ve got just about the simplest digital interface for a camera we’ve ever seen. You can switch to your back-facing camera or front, switch the aspect ratio of your photo, turn off/on location data attached to your photos, and preview the photo you last took. You can also go to a gallery of all of your photos and video or switch the camera over to video capture. You will not be capturing any award winning masterpieces with the PS Vita, and the Vita OS is clearly not made for heavy-hitting cameras, so don’t expect any Sony cameras to be running Vita OS any time soon!

The Photos app also has your connection to your gallery of images and video accessible in the LiveArea for the app as well. Just look at those masterpieces! This is also where your screenshots are stored – PS Vita is able to take a screenshot by you pressing the PlayStation button and the Start button at the same time – snap!

Network Operator

This app helps you work out your data plan with AT&T in this case, and will likely only be appearing on mobile data connected devices in the future.

Hands-on 3/4 : Trophies / Network Operator / Camera / Browser

Browser

The web browser that Vita OS uses appears very much to be a prime-time-ready look at the web, with an interface on the right-hand-side for heading back and forward, seeing multiple tabs, searching, and seeing favorites along with settings at the bottom bubble. Inside your setting you’ve got such items as security and javascrip which you can turn off or on. Scroll down and the URL bar disappears up with the top of the page, this browser acting like an app that’s fully aware of the display size its working with and certainly making the best of it.

Videos

Probably the most heavily tread LiveArea card in the whole operating system is the one made for Videos as Sony’s own PlayStation Store has movies and TV show episodes for sale – so essentially your whole LiveArea is covered with links to videos you can go to the store and pay for. The Videos app from there is a very basic interface with separations between All, Rented, and transferred in from your PC, with these screens and the videos themselves having screenshot disabled so you can’t break any snapshot laws. Inside a video you’ll also find a very basic set of controls with the ability to scrub through a video based on different intervals if you wish – 1 to 5 minutes to get through Inglorious Basterds with just a handful of clips – very convenient!

Music

The menues and interface for Music is essentially the same as Videos with the added benefit of being able to play, pause, and move through tracks from the LiveArea card the only real big difference. There’s also the fact that PlayStation doesn’t have music in its store which allows for a much cleaner LiveArea panel devoid of ads for new releases.

Hands-on 4/4 : Music / Videos / Remote Play / Content Manager / Settings

Remote Play

This rock and roll feature allows you to connect the two most powerful gaming device you’ve got in your collection to one another to control the Playstation 3 with the PS Vita. We can’t help but guess that this is the start of the connections that will eventually also include controlling the Sony smart TV from your smartphone, the Vita from your PlayStation, and back and forth and so on. Setup is simple and quick and painless.

Maps

Google Maps is what powers this application, the interface not unlike what we’ve seen from iOS or Android in the past. You wont get turn by turn directions read aloud to you here, but should you have a navigator in the vehicle with you to read them out loud, you’ll be golden. This device has a GPS sensor which allows for your location and the location you’re headed to to be found easily, and the PS Vita does appear to have an excellent sensor in place as locations are found without much delay at all. Car and walking directions are included here (while the Android version also has public transport and more.)

Settings

The settings you’ve got here allow for basic changes to the device’s setup with some of the options appearing to not quite have a complete set of options behind them. The “Power Save Settings” for example only has one item in its list: Auto Standby with an option to change the time from 1 minute to 5 minutes and everything in between. You can also sign in or out of your PlayStation Network account, get privacy settings for your account, adjust your sound and display options, and work with parental controls through your Security options. There’s also a Screen Lock here, both it and the Parental Controls inflicting a simple PIN number which you select and keep a secret.

User Interface Navigation

There are one whole heck of a lot of buttons, panels that sense your touch, and sensors in and on this device, but you’ll only need the main touchscreen to get through the operating system itself. There’s often a “back” button in the lower left of the display to move backward through sets of information while the blue-lit PlayStation button most of the time performs the same function, while pressing the PlayStation button enough times will bring you back down to the home screen – after it shows you your LiveArea first for quicker app switching if you wish.

On the whole, the majority of the buttons do not do anything until you are inside games that require them. The only lag we’ve experienced from Vita thus far haas been in loading screens before apps have opened – though such high-powered apps should be expected to take a bit to load, yes? We’ll speak about that more in the next in this review series, one focusing more on the hardware of the PS Vita rather than the Vita OS.

Wrap-Up

This operating system is pretty awesome, and that not just considering the fact that it’s sort of new, just having been debuted over the past few months here on the PS Vita. This operating system is smooth, makes a lot of sense, and has a big future in more places than just on this one piece of hardware. We’re rooting for Sony to continue development on this operating system so that it can be used on smartphones perhaps, but especially smart TV units – it’ll work great!

This device comes out this week, and is the first place the Vita OS will be shown to the United States and the UK. Stay tuned here on SlashGear to our series of reviews of the PS Vita and its operating system Vita OS. Let me and us know exactly what else it is that you’d like to know about the device and its operating system now and we’ll do our best to let you know the truth!

As you advance through the grid, you’ll find that your ability to move to different squares changes based on what move you made last. If you head straight through several of your moves, you may find yourself crashing into a wall because you don’t have the ability to gain a great enough turn radius. If you don’t advance enough squares by moving as far from your current space to the next, your opponents may out-race you.

And your opponents can block your moves as well. Any player can potentially figure out where their opponent is going to land next by checking the amount of squares and direction they last moved. Blocking an opponent is as simple as moving into the selection of points your opponent was bound to head into next. Once you’ve mastered the art of blocking, you’ll be good to go to win almost any race.

This game is out on the iTunes App Store right this second for a grand total of $0.99, and its worth every penny. You can play against a robot, against an opponent you’ve got sitting next to you by switching your phone back and forth between one another, opponents on a wi-fi network, and opponents through the web on Game Center. It’s fun stuff!

What you’ve got to do in this game – available for both the iPad 1/2 and the iPhone – note that we’re reviewing it on an iPhone 4S here – is keep yourself in the game. In the hands-on video I compare this game to the greatest schoolyard game you might never have played: Spread the Eagle. This game from your middle-school days was one in which you didn’t necessarily have to do anything at all in order to stay in the game, but because you want to have fun, you go nuts with action. The same is true here, to a degree, as the monsters surrounding your building want to have a great time, and if you give them condos to eat, they most certainly will!

If you give them the wrong color condos to eat – you’ll notice they’re color-coded – you’ll find that they are prone to getting angry. There are so many symbols and markers, graphics that’ll blow your mind, and animations that you’ll be surprised are sitting pretty here on a game that costs less than a buck, and it’s all controlled with one of two actions: swipe left, or swipe right!

Feed the right colors to the right monsters, then try to match up three of the same color condo to switch your monsters out and drum up additional points. There are several modes of play, but the game concept remains the same through the whole of them: keep the monsters happy, and keep your tower straight. This game is a must-buy for those of you wishing to see the full graphics capabilities of your iPad or iPhone – but don’t let your grandmother play it, she’ll likely freak out. Monsters Ate My Condo is available on the iTunes App Store right this minute for $0.99 cheap!

Storyline

The storyline here is one that takes place some months after the prison madness of Batman: Arkham Asylum, the first game in this series. What’s gone on since then is the city government of Gotham City has created a walled-in miniature town in which all the criminals that would otherwise have been sent to the asylum for the criminally insane have been confined – this city is called Arkham City. This and the fact that a set of corrupt police officers under the orders of the fellow who’s been left in charge of the city have tossed Bruce Wayne in the city to fend for himself make this storyline appear rather familiar.

This is a re-written version of Escape from New York (or Escape from Los Angeles, if you prefer), and Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, is Snake Plissken. Once you’ve been pulled into the city by the sinister Hugo Strange, who is running the city in this storyline, your goal is to continue the investigation you started before you were captured – and with your endless arsenal of gadgets, abilities, and skills in both the combat and detective arenas, you’ll have more than an engaging time doing so. The story does aim at making this a quintessential Batman game as it does appear to try to contain each and every one of the main villains, but of course its unlikely nature is easily trumped by the vastness of the environment and your complete freedom in exploring all of your possibilities.

This is a Batman story, and because it takes on the story started in the first Arkham game and expands upon it by literally turning the asylum into an entire city, it’s great. And not only do you get to move through the main storyline, there are side-stories and tasks you can attain as well. And of course, what good game centered around a city would be complete without Grand Theft Auto free-play, your ability to explore nearly without limit!

Gameplay

When you play this game, you are Batman. You’ll want to put on your movie-quality Batman mask and put on the sharp gloves because you’ll feel like you’re the real deal. You play the part of the real detective Batman, the one with vast sets of maps, decoding tools, and your trusty pal Alfred Pennyworth (aka Bruce Wayne’s butler and Batman’s most valuable helper, for those of you unfamiliar). You also play the part of the fully equipped Batman, complete with every little Bat-tool you’ve ever heard of. Fly to the tops of buildings with your Line Launcher pulling you from the ground all the way up, glide around the town with your cape-cum-Bat-Glider, and traverse the landscape as you discover the ever-changing set of situations in the whole of Arkham City.

You’ve got levels on top of levels of ways to interact with your environment, from punching a bad guy in the face to attaching a line to a horizon scaffold to lower yourself down on top of the enemy head-first. You can attack a villain from above, flipping down to knock him out with your boot. You can make a glide-attack from a half-mile above a group of gangsters directly to a fellow’s face. Toss your Remote Controlled Batarang and make it flip and fly from your hand down the aisle, around the corner, and under a table to hit a notorious fellow in the kneecap. You will know the meaning of a diverse set of views and controls when you work here in the city.

You’ll want to choose your controls wisely. The folks who make the game have some special edition Batarang controllers you can use, but know this: there are many ways. When you see the demonstration video you’ll see your humble narrator using the keyboard on the laptop and a plain ol’ two-button and a scroll wheel mouse. You’ve got many choices, to say the least.

Graphics

Again I must say that this is far and away the most aesthetically voluptuous video game I’ve ever played, and with the setup I’ve got running here there’s no waiting for anything. Flowing cape, purple haze, and masses of bats haunt your vision as you move through a very real (yet virtual, believe it or not) world of Arkham City. You’ll walk across a collapsing set of poles over motel metal, gaze over the masses of buildings complete with weather, and move in and out of cinematics without even a moment’s delay.

When you fight a set of gangsters, you’ll know you’ve beaten them all because whichever ends up being your final punch or kick is swiftly zoomed in on shown in ultra slow-motion. It’s just lovely. Have a peek at the enhancements you’ll be working with should you play this game with the same GPU we’re having a look at here – lots more floaties!

Hands-on with Batman: Arkham City on an Alienware M17xR3

The 3rd Dimension

I played this game in 3D with the NVIDIA 3D Vision 2 wireless 3D glasses you see in the hands-on video. Notice in the video that you’re not seeing in 3D — that’s not because the 3D glasses don’t work, its because the camera can’t translate the effect. What you’re seeing instead is one of two frames that the glasses would otherwise send to your two eyes for the full 3D effect. And that effect is good. Where I’m by no means a fan of the 3D era we’re in right this moment, these glasses fit my face, the lenses cover my eyes adequately, and I don’t get a headache like I did with the ol’ blue and red glasses or these no-glasses 3D effects we’re seeing with some smartphones this past year.

Those are nasty, this is undeniably good.

Wrap-up

This game is the one rig giants will be using as their go-to for “look at how amazing this machine is” for quite some time, without a doubt. The folks at Rocksteady Studios have done a fantastic job of both developing and delivering the game, this including promoting the game with several offers on each different iteration of the game – like Gamestop where you’ll find the reviews sitting at 10 out of 10 almost without end. This game is out now for several platforms including Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, but as this PC version is without a doubt the most aesthetically powerful, this is the one you should get. Suit up now.

And know this – as with all of our reviews here on SlashGear of products like smartphones, tablets, computers of all types, and even the tiniest of remote control vehicles, you’re welcome to continue to ask questions throughout the future that your humble narrator (or whoever did each particular review) will do their best to answer. In other words – what else do you want to know?

UPDATE: the final release version of this game is out now, check out our follow-up post and hands-on video once you get down reading about it here, then pick the game up in the market!

A third-person shooter is, for those of you that don’t know, a game in which you’re looking over the shoulder of the character that you control, using your controls to then fire all manner of projectile weapons (or in some cases, cutting weapons or even your fists,) at your enemy. Here we’re using our fists to jam on computer consoles to pass through doors and open locks while our trigger finger blasts enemies with nothing less than an Alien caliber pulse rifle-esque supergun. Our enemies are a set of mutated humanoids and their robot counterparts – without getting too much into the story, basically they’re all freakish and you wont have any trouble with your conscience for blasting them into pieces.

There IS a storyline, and you can read it in the hands-on video here if you please, and there IS a reason you’re on this planet with its industrial used-future look and hallways full of nasty customers, but heck, you know why you’re here. Your controls are simple and well-placed, this especially so since you can control where they sit. You’ve got your joystick, gun trigger, view and aim, reload gun button, gun switcher, and settings. Everything else you see there on the gray line below is a result of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 pushing its TouchWiz UX up in our face – forget it’s there for now.

You can move all of your controls around and indeed even the wherever-you-need-it joystick for moving your character can be set in one place if you want it. The game is single player, contains what Madfinger says is 5 hours of play, and contains multiple outcomes at the end depending on how you’ve played your cards. The game ISNT easy for a beginner, and there are three difficulty settings for even the most hardened of shooter-game experts.

You’ll be able to find this game in the Tegra Zone as well as on the Android Market immediately if not soon, just search for that unique word: SHADOWGUN. It’s the only one in there, I assure you. This version is optimized, again, for the NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core chipset, and there WILL be an updated version for the quad-core Kal-El NVIDIA chipset come this winter. Exciting!

Hardware

The family similarity between the PSP Go and the XPERIA Play is obvious. Both have a slide-out gaming keypad and a chubby little body: 119 x 62 x 16 mm for the Sony Ericsson, 128 x 69 x 16.5 mm for the Sony. Even so, Sony Ericsson manages to fit in a larger display, a 4-inch panel running at 854 x 480 resolution. Colors and viewing angles are fine, but brightness falls well short, being mediocre indoors and oftentimes unusable outside. That’s with the backlight set to maximum, too; there’s no auto-brightness option, though we can see that the XPERIA Play is indeed adjusting in relation to ambient light (cover the top section of the phone and the screen dims automatically).

Above the display is a front-facing VGA resolution camera and proximity sensor, while underneath are four frustratingly spongy buttons for back, home, menu and search. The power/lock button is on the top edge, while the 3.5mm headphones socket and microUSB port are on the left side, set into a slice of chrome-finish plastic. On the right side are the left and right gaming shoulder keys – more on which in a moment – and, centrally, a volume rocker; we consistently had trouble pressing the latter, thanks to their slightly recessed position and the tendency of the slide mechanism to open slightly with any pressure. On the back is a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and an LED flash.

Of course, it’s the gaming controls that have prompted the most interest. Slide up the spring-loaded display – something that’s easy to do one-handed – and you find a D-pad, PlayStation-style face buttons (triangle, square, circle and cross), and two touch-sensitive analog controls that attempt to mimic the physical analog pads on a DualShock. On the bottom left is a second menu button (useful, since it means you needn’t reach up to tap the fascia key) while on the bottom right are select and start buttons.

The physical keys are good, nicely sprung and responsive, just as you’d hope. Sony Ericsson’s analog pads take a little more getting used to, however. The center dimple makes finding them without looking straightforward, but without a physical limit to how far we could move our thumb – as you’d get with a real stick – we sometimes found ourselves overshooting and slipping off the control altogether. As for the shoulder buttons, they’re bizarrely wobbly and flappy, though broad enough so that our fingers found them easily.

Build quality and hand-feel is a mixed bag. The slide is sold, and generally the XPERIA Play feels reassuringly weighty, but Sony Ericsson’s choice of plastics smacks of cost-cutting. The matte silver of the gamepad is sturdy and tactile, but the glossy black battery cover and screen surround feel cheap. While the tubby little chassis makes for a noticeable bulge in the pocket, it makes holding the XPERIA Play in landscape orientation for gaming more comfortable.

Under the hood it’s a pretty standard Android phone, with a single-core 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 processor, Adreno 205 graphics, 512MB of RAM, 400MB of internal storage and a bundled 8GB microSD card. Pop off the battery cover and there’s a 1,500 mAh pack along with the memory card slot and SIM slot; the latter two can be accessed without removing the battery, and the microSD is automatically unmounted when you remove the cover. Although you can pull the SIM without powering down the phone first, we did find we had to power-cycle anyway if we wanted the XPERIA Play to reconnect to the mobile network once we’d slotted it back in.

Connectivity includes quadband GSM/EDGE and then various configurations of UMTS/WCMDA depending on location; there’ll also be a CDMA version for Verizon. WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and of course microUSB 2.0 round out the main specs, along with some surprisingly effective stereo speakers.

Software and Performance

Sony Ericsson’s big push for 2011 is keeping its Android installations up to date, and hopefully avoiding the same software debacle as affected the XPERIA X10. The XPERIA Play runs Android 2.3.2 Gingerbread, on top of which is Sony Ericsson’s custom UI; however, the company tells us that they’ve been careful this time around not to cement the two elements together. That, so the promise goes, should allow them to update the underlying OS more readily, or indeed tweak the custom software without demanding a whole new Android ROM be pushed out.

Obviously there’s no way to know exactly how well that will translate into the real-world, at least until the first Android platform update is available. Sony Ericsson obviously has a vested interest in making it as streamlined as possible, considering the fall-out over its first generation devices, but we imagine there’ll still be some delay between Google releasing new versions of Android and them arriving on the XPERIA Play.

What you do get is Timescape, Sony Ericsson’s social networking app, which pulls together Facebook and Twitter updates into a single stream. As before, there are flickable cards on a homescreen widget – each with profile pictures – and the XPERIA Play will link up your contacts with recent Twitter updates. Sony Ericsson has also added some widgets of their own, including a PlayStation game carousel, data traffic monitor and various media controls, all with a rather elegant UI skin that replaces Gingerbread’s black and lime green with blues and plenty of transparent effects. Happily it doesn’t slow the system down noticeably, either, though Timescape can suffer a little lag as it updates.

We ran Quadrant, the Android benchmarking tool, and the XPERIA Play scored 1403. That puts it in-between the Desire S, which managed just 1147, and the Incredible S, which hit 1559, both of which use the same MSM8255 chipset but have 50-percent more RAM. Meanwhile, in SunSpider browser benchmarking, the Sony Ericsson scored 5582.9ms (lower is better). In general use the browser was satisfactory, though we did see some stuttering when zooming on heavier pages.

Games

Open the controller slide and the handset automatically shifts into gaming mode, with a two-tab XPERIA Play UI showing a side-scrolling list of titles you already have on the smartphone and what else is available to download. Tapping any of the latter takes you into the regular Android Market; alternatively a smaller Market logo automatically searches for anything labeled “XPERIA PLAY optimized.” As of testing there are 40 titles to be had, with prices ranging from free to around £5/$7.99. Sony Ericsson preloads Bruce Lee, FIFA 10, Star Battalion HD and The Sims 3.

Of course, Sony has a catalog of PS One titles to mine, and so there’s also the “PlayStation pocket” app. This shows your recently played titles, the pre-loaded Crash Bandicoot and, if you hit the tiny search button, gives you five more options: Cool Boarders 2, Destruction Derby, Jumping Flash, MediEvil and Syphon Filter. Tapping any of those takes you into the Android Market again, though oddly Sony’s own PS One titles don’t show up in the XPERIA Play app and there’s no apparent way to combine the two sets of games.

It’s all more than a bit confusing, and we can only assume that Sony was loathe to allow its titles to get mixed up – and potentially eclipsed – by third-party games. The end result, though, is more menu jumping than we’d prefer to see, which gets in the way of simply gaming. Sony Ericsson’s idea to have a game-theme UI auto-load when you slide open the controls is sensible, but it needs to be more consistent and self-explanatory.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA Play hands-on:

Games themselves are a mixed bag. Those from the Android Market are scaled to fit the WVGA display, but PS One games are 4:3 aspect and so end up with black bars on either side. Alternatively you can zoom or stretch the game to fit, but neither looks especially impressive. Only certain titles make use of the analog pads, and you’ll likely spend some time digging through the settings to make sure the controls are mapped out as you’d expect them to be; it will probably take a while before developers begin coding specifically for the XPERIA Play’s gamepad. Get a call while you’re playing, meanwhile, and it’s title-dependent as to whether you can resume afterwards from where you left off, or if the game shuts down completely and you have to hope there was a recent save-point.

Camera

Sony Ericsson has stuck with the regular Gingerbread camera interface, which is short on settings but at least relatively straightforward. It’s easy to flick between the front VGA camera and the rear 5-megapixel camera, as well as toggle into camcorder mode. Considering the emphasis on imaging quality Sony Ericsson has placed on its 2011 range of handsets, though, the absence of 720p HD video recording is baffling. Instead, you get WVGA resolution clips at 30fps, which are blurry and uninspiring.

XPERIA Play video sample:

Stills are crisp and clear however, and we prefer the XPERIA Play’s shots to what the Desire S produced. Colors are nicely balanced, and while there’s no dedicated macro mode, close-ups are kept nicely in focus. The LED flash is, like most of its ilk, woefully underpowered in truly dark situations, but does a reasonable job in moderate low-light environments. Pinch-zooming of photos is smooth and responsive.

Phone and Battery

No great surprises when it comes to phone performance from the XPERIA Play, with par for the course in-call quality. The speakerphone is a little louder than most, thanks to the boosted speakers. There’s obviously Bluetooth headset (and stereo A2DP) support.

Sony Ericsson suggest users will see up to 6 hours 25 minutes of 3G talktime (8 hours 25 minutes of GSM) or up to 413 hours of 3G standby (425 hours GSM). Alternative they predict up to 5 hours 30 minutes of solid gaming. In practice, with a mixture of browsing, push Gmail turned on, a few photos and some gameplay, we coaxed a day’s use out of the XPERIA Play before it required a recharge, again pretty standard for a current Android device. Nonetheless, heavier gaming will see runtimes take a tumble, and of course that means you’re not only without your games platform but your phone (and camera, and PMP) as well.

Wrap-Up

As we said before, the rumors about Sony Ericsson making a PlayStation phone with plenty of Sony gaming input aren’t new. Neither are the mutterings that Sony execs refused to allow the cellular partnership to use the PlayStation brand, over fears that a sub-par product might dilute its appeal among the gaming community. So, where does that leave the XPERIA Play, a device which gets to wear half the branding from each company?

Frankly, you can see why Sony might be cautious, and the XPERIA Play doesn’t quite deliver the knockout punch that will instantly dispel their concerns. The gamepad works, and the premise of playing PS One titles while mobile is brilliant, but there’s still a disconnect between Sony Ericsson’s hardware and the games on offer. Part of that is the simple number of titles to choose from – six from the PS One and a bigger handful of Android games – but there’s also the more concerning fact that even what’s available already isn’t the polished experience we’d hoped for.

That will likely improve in time, though there are hardware concerns – such as the dim display and some of the cheap plastics – that won’t. Sony has ambitious plans to get Android gamers involved in beefing up the number of titles that will run on its own NGP handheld, and that should deliver a significant boost to the software ecosystem; problem is, the NGP isn’t expected until sometime in Q3 2011, meaning it might be six months or more before that boost actually happens.

Can a single-core Android handset maintain its allure until that point, even with the USP of a physical gaming keypad, given the current pace of the smartphone market? Sony Ericsson’s target market occupies the space between casual gamers content with normal touchscreen control and hardcore gamers for whom only a dedicated console will do. The scope of that market will depend on how quickly it can draw in games developers: the XPERIA Play is a solid device that will live or die by its software.

Hardware

Style-wise the 3DS is classic Nintendo, obviously related to the DSi and DS Lite before it. At 134 x 74 x 21 mm it’s actually slightly narrower than the DSi, though a little thicker when closed. Physically it’s angular and bristling with ports and buttons, with a shimmering metallic-effect plastic casing that feels solid and creak-free. The lid snaps open with an audible click and defaults to a reasonably broad angle; it likes to stay there, too, so more personal adjustments aren’t particularly accommodated. A slight curve to the profile makes it easy to open up, and the 230g weight is only a little greater than the DSi’s 214g and well under the DSi XL’s 314g.

Inside there’s a mixture of mystery and custom chips, with Nintendo keeping the exact specifications of the 3DS’ processor secret. What has been confirmed is the custom Digital Media Professionals PICA200 chip, a departure from the proprietary Nintendo GPUs of previous models. We can’t argue too much with the performance, with menus and UIs moving quickly and lag-free, though individual apps and games – more on which later – do take a little longer to boot. with little in the way of delay. There’s also 2GB of storage pre-installed in the SD card slot.

The big news, of course, is the 3D display, which joins the 3.02-inch 320 x 240 resistive touchscreen on the lower half of the 3DS. A 3.53-inch autostereoscopic screen, it offers glasses-free 3D as long as you’re looking dead-on. Resolution is 800 x 240, though because of the way the 3D picture is created – splitting the pixels between each eye and refracting them through an adjustable parallax barrier – the effective resolution is 400 x 240. Still higher than previous DS’, though.

Ports include a game card slot on the back that will take new 3DS titles and existing DSi/DS games, but not the larger Game Boy Advance carts, along with the SD slot, a proprietary power port for rejuicing the non-user-replaceable 1,300 mAh battery. The extending stylus is on the back, along with an IR port, while a wireless switch for the WiFI b/g is on the right edge and a volume slider on the left edge. At the front is a centrally-positioned 3.5mm headphone jack, along with power and charge LEDs.

On the outer edge are two cameras, each shooting at VGA resolution. Flip open the lid, and stereo speakers flank the upper display; there’s also a microphone and another VGA camera for self-portraits. Nintendo supply a docking station that can be used to recharge the 3DS, or alternatively you can plug the AC adapter in directly.

Controls

Despite the similarity in sizes, Nintendo has been considerably more ambitious with its range of hardware controls and sensors on the 3DS. As well as the left and right shoulder buttons, normal A/B/X/Y cluster and power key, there’s both an analog “circle pad” and the usual D-pad, the latter having shifted down to a less-than-ergonomic position almost in the bottom left-hand corner to accommodate. The Select/Home/Start keys now run under the touchscreen, and we can’t help but wish Nintendo had differentiated between them with at least a ridge between the three.

Still, the new analog pad is tactile and usable, with a soft-touch rubberized finish that cups the thumb nicely. Nintendo’s usual well-sprung buttons leave us no room for complaint, and – mildly frustrating D-pad positioning aside – there are no significant ergonomic blunders. The resistive touchscreen is easily stabbed with the stylus but is still manageable – even with the onscreen QWERTY keyboard – with a fingernail. Inside there’s now a 3-axis accelerometer and a 3-axis gyroscope for motion-sensitive games.

3D

Say 3D and traditionally you think of pictures leaping out of the screen at you; the 3DS, however, works the other way around. Instead of pushing content out, it adds a sense of depth to graphics and video. As with all glasses-free 3D there are limitations, primarily as to where you can actually see the effect from: you need to be facing the 3.53-inch panel head-on, with the 3DS around 12-inches away from your face, and with little in the way of movement (even if you’re getting excited about the game).

Nintendo’s initial 3D tutorial and setup wizard does a great job when it comes to both wow-factor and familiarizing users with the system. There’s undeniably something impressive when, after a 3…2…1… countdown, the 3D effect switches on. The tendency, at least initially, is to try to tilt the 3DS from side to side and “look around” the screen, though of course when you move more than a few degrees off-center you lose 3D altogether. That also means anybody watching you play won’t get to see the effect either.

On the right edge of the screen is a 3D depth slider, cranking the effect from maximum – which requires you have the 3DS closer to your face – to 2D mode, where the 3D visuals are shut off altogether (but you still only get a 400 x 240 image). Most of the time we had the slider at the 3/4 position and could leave it there, though switching games did usually require a little tweaking.

It all works, and it works very well, but there are potential health hiccups that Nintendo is being very upfront about. The 3DS startup screen and individual games themselves all warn about long-term use of 3D graphics, suggesting as much as 10-15 minutes rest per half-hour session. We had mixed results when it came to eye-strain; although regular gameplay left us with no real issues, when playing 3D titles when moving (on public transport, not while we were simultaneously trying to drive!) we found ourselves feeling a little queasy. Snapping the 3DS shut addressed that straight away, however. Overall, while the temptation is to crank the 3D depth slider all the way to the top and “get your money’s worth,” a more measured approach pays dividends on your eyes.

Games

An 18-strong line-up of launch titles are on offer with the Nintendo 3DS, including Nintendo’s own The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Star Fox 64 3D, Kid Icarus: Uprising and new installments in the Mario Kart series. Meanwhile a range of third-party games are also on offer; the full list is here.

Nintendo supplied two 3DS titles, Streetfighter IV 3D Edition and PilotWings, which ironically did a good job of demonstrating that 3D graphics aren’t necessarily a must-have across the gameplay board. PilotWings was most successful, with the added depth lending exploration of the 3D environment a far more immersive feel. Pushing the slider all the way to 2D proved that, with the game feeling far less interesting once we’d experienced it in three dimensions.

Streetfighter IV 3D Edition, meanwhile, felt less in need of 3D sprucing. There’s a new 3D perspective on offer, but what you gain in graphical glitz you lose in actual playability. Played side-on, as usual, and the 3D effects don’t really add to the gameplay, though the 3DS’ graphics potential gets a decent workout and the whole thing is a neat step up over what earlier DS versions are capable of.

StreetPass

Close the 3DS’ lid and the console enters sleep mode, with the WiFi still active and looking out for friends to talk to. Walk within range of another 3DS and StreetPass automatically exchanges some basic stats: your Mii avatar, performance figures and even puzzle pieces in the Puzzle Swap mini-game. Obviously its usefulness will depend on how many 3DS owners are near you; city-dwellers will probably have more luck.

Camera, Augmented Reality and Apps

While 3D gaming on the 3DS is as complete as you’d expect, at the periphery of the mobile experience the Nintendo starts to feel like a work-in-progress. There’s no browser, nor access to the Nintendo eShop, both of which will be added later in the year in a firmware update. Similarly, for US owners a summer update will add Netflix video streaming support over WiFi, and free access to AT&T’s thousands of Hotspots.

Out of the box, though, the experience is somewhat half-baked. The 3D cameras are likely to be the biggest initial draw, a pair of 0.3-megapixel lenses on the outer lid that can snap 2D or 3D pictures at uninspiring 640 x 480 resolution. 3D focus defaults to automatic, but can be controlled manually, and there are various effects ranging from simple pinhole and low-light shots, to a face-swapping mode which overlays your own face (as seen by the internal camera) over the top of whatever you’re looking at, and a bizarre “Sparkle” mode which sprinkles bubbles, stars, confetti and other madness over the frame when you blow on the microphone.

Manual controls include some tweaking over sharpness, contrast and brightness, and there’s a self-timer which can also be triggered by noise, but there’s no escaping the generally underwhelming end result. 3D pictures are definitely 3D, but tend to look like several layers of 3D pictures sandwiched together, while 2D shots are shown up by even the cheapest of cellphone camera. The fact that 3D playback is limited to the 3DS itself doesn’t really help.

Instead, we had more fun with the bundled deck of six AR (augmented reality) cards. Placed on a table and viewed with the 3DS, five offer up 3D versions of famous Nintendo characters, but the sixth – with the question-mark – offers a selection of AR mini-games as in the video demo below. That’s when the 3DS’ twin cameras and 3D display really come into their own, though it’ll take some third-party support to give the concept legs. If developers get on board with sufficient imagination then this could well be the 3DS’ USP.

Nintendo 3DS Augmented Reality Demo:

Other apps are a little more mundane; there’s a 3D Mii Maker to create a Nintendo avatar, and they can interact with other gamers in the StreetPass Mii Plaza, along with a pedometer that uses the accelerometer to count your steps and display the total on the homescreen. Face Invaders takes a snapshot of your own face and then creates a gurning 3D AR shooter out of it, with floating heads diving around the room as you attempt to shoot them out of the sky.

Finally there’s 3DS Sound, an audio recording app which allows you to record samples using the console’s microphone and then mangle them with various effects, speed and pitch control, and other variables. You also get a basic media player, which can handle MP3 and AAC files.

Battery

The 3DS may have the biggest battery of a DS to-date – 1,300 mAh versus the DSi XL’s 1,050 mAh and the DSi’s 840 mAh – but that doesn’t add up to lengthy runtimes. Nintendo estimate 3-5hrs of 3D gaming, depending on whether WiFi is turned on and how bright the screen is, or 5-8hrs of DS gaming.

In reality, we managed just over 3hrs with wireless on. Turning WiFi off extended that a little further, but by under 30 minutes. In short, it’s underwhelming, and while DS games will last a few hours more, the 3DS still can’t keep up with a DSi or DS Lite. A user-replaceable battery would have been great, but is obviously too much to ask for, so expect to make plenty of use of the bundled charging cradle. Adding insult to injury, the 3DS isn’t especially speedy when it comes to recharging, either.

Wrap-Up

There’s no denying that the Nintendo 3DS offers a significant step up in features compared to its predecessors. The 3D flits between being a gimmick and adding a true extra layer of depth to the gaming experience, and while it’s not appealing to everybody, it does at least give the Nintendo a unique proposition among handheld consoles. Unfortunately, some of the hardware decisions undermine the overall value, like the mediocre resolution of the camera for 2D or 3D stills, and the disappointing battery life.

Value in itself is a tricky one. At $249.99 in the US and around £196.99 in the UK, it’s considerably more expensive than the $129.99 DS Lite; titles, meanwhile, are a hefty $39.99 each, and we’re yet to see the “must have” game to convince us both of the 3DS in general and 3D gameplay specifically. That will hopefully come with time, though, as developers familiarize themselves with the Nintendo’s abilities and take advantage of the 3D, augmented reality and StreetPass cleverness.

They’ll need to step up, since the 3DS’ primary competition no longer comes from Sony’s PSP and the incoming NGP. Instead it’s smartphone gaming that presents the biggest challenge, a huge – and growing – number of titles with, in comparison to each Nintendo cartridge, throwaway price tags and increasingly sophisticated gameplay. Handsets like the LG Optimus 3D and HTC EVO 3D will mount challenges when it comes to glasses-free 3D gameplay, too, and both phones have significantly higher resolution cameras than the 3DS’ VGA array.

The Nintendo eShop will hopefully bridge that gap between casual and regular gaming, but that the 3DS launches without it – and without the browser – is a gaping hole in the handheld’s allure. That should be addressed midway through the year, and then Nintendo will have to fight to bring in the sort of developer support that iOS and Android gaming has already secured. 3D video content, as the company is also investing in, will add another string to the 3DS’ bow, and further increase the value proposition.

One thing is for sure, mobile gaming is heating up, and simply being a good distraction for when you’re on the bus is no longer sufficient. Today’s gamers want not only compelling titles but a functionality long-tail that demands apps, internet support and social gaming. The 3DS isn’t quite convincing on all of those fronts, at least at launch, but the roadmap looks solid and, if those components slot into place, then we’re confident it will carve out a distinctively-Nintendo niche in the market.

First Impressions

This game fires up to show several brand names that spell out “this is going to be amazing almost no matter what.” EPIC Games, UDK, ChAIR, and the mother of them all, UNREAL Technology. We’ve just reviewed a couple of games for the Motorola XOOM that had UNREAL involved, and oh my goodness let me tell you that we’ve essentially now GOT to crack our claws out for any new game that comes along associated with them. They’re good.

As this game fires up, it rolls past the start screen, hitting almost immediately the playing of the game via just a tiny bit of training. A mistake many games have been making in this transitional period with mobile gaming is to move a game that was on a console or otherwise larger system here to mobile without changing it a bit. You’ve got to make it work FASTER, because that’s what a mobile gamer not only expects, it’s what he or she needs. This game knows that, and it knows it hardcore.

The game launches instantly into a storyline and cinematic that are complicated enough to be engaging but simple enough that you don’t have to CARE what’s going on to play the game.

Perfect balance achieved!

Gameplay

This game consists of walking a distance, seeing if there are any items about your feet for picking up, making sure your health and person are up to snuff, and fighting. Fighting in this game consists of tapping and swiping across the screen, not unlike what you’d be doing in Fruit Ninja, but here with a level of complexity that again achieves a perfect balance. The balance is between response time, intricacy, and entertainment value. This fighting system has enough moves and advancements in moves as you move through the game that you will not become bored. This fighting system has a response time that, while not 100% perfect, is the best you’re going to find on the iOS platform. This fighting system allows you to hit, cut, dodge, parry, block, use magic, use special moves, and more and more as you move along and gain experience. It’s entertaining every single time you fight.

Storyline

The story here is that you’re a warrior whose father has been killed by this evil warlord. You need to go into the castle where your father war murdered (20 years earlier,) and beat your way through a series of monsters until you reach the head villain whom you must also kill. The first time we went through the game, it took about 20 minutes to find the throne room, and we scored a single hit on the head bad guy. He murdered the crap out of us instantly afterward. Once you die, at least by his hand, your quest begins again, but not as you, as your son. We’ve only done this a couple times so we assume it’s always a son, and the story always goes that it’s 20 years later once again. Your son, since he’s in your bloodline, inherits not only the power and experience you had when you died at the head of the top boss, but your gear as well. This isn’t the first place in the story where you’ll be questioning logic, and it’s not the last, but if you accept this oddness, you’re going to have one whole heck of a lot of fun playing this oddity of a game. Plus, it’d totally be horrible if you lost your awesome sword after a single death!

Wrap-Up

While I write this review, this game costs a total of $5.99 in the app store, and I personally have only tried it out on the iPad 2. It looks and acts like it’s the best game ever made for the mobile platform, and feels like a game whose format I and we have never before experienced. It’s a winner. It’s worth the $6 if only to experience this new format of game and learn what’s possible for the future. Plus there’s some unbelievably freaky monsters in here you’ve just GOT to witness.

Go buy the crap out of it [here]

Compared to the DSi’s 137 x 74.9 x 18.9 mm, the DSi XL measures in at 161 x 91.4 x 21.2 mm and, at 214g, weighs 100g more. All that extra chassis space is mainly dominated by the new screens; each measures 4.2-inches, with the lower panel being a touchscreen and the upper one a plain display. Sat side by side with the DSi the new handheld is perhaps a little brighter, but the main difference is that there’s no squinting involved any more. The sort of older – perhaps glasses wearing – gamers that Nintendo are partially targeting the DSi XL at should find it far easier to read text and make out smaller icons.

In fact, the only downside to the new displays comes by virtue of Nintendo doing nothing to increase resolution. Just like the DSi before it, each DSi XL panel runs at 256 x 192, and while that might be sufficient for 3.25-inches, blown up to 4.2-inches and you start to notice blockiness. We’re guessing this is to maintain compatibility, but we’d have loved to have seen higher resolution screens for DSi XL specific titles.

In comparison to the bigger chassis and the bigger displays, the DSi XL’s controls are pretty much unchanged from the DSi. That includes the D-pad and buttons, together with the shoulder triggers, and even the slot-in stylus is the same as on the smaller handheld. As before, the controls are highly clicky, but we found that after some heavy duty play they started to loosen up a little. Nintendo also throw a second stylus into the box, this one looking more like a regular pen than the narrow stick that actually stows into the handheld. There’s a lanyard loop at the end, but what looks like a pocket-clip is, bizarrely, simply a ridge of plastic.

The final significant change is the DSi XL’s speaker system. It’s certainly louder than the DSi, and you can crank music up higher than before without introducing as much distortion. However the software responsible for media playback is just as frustrating as before, with the biggest annoyance being Nintendo’s continued insistence that all music should be in AAC rather than MP3 format. Meanwhile it’s still impossible to browse the internet over the DSi XL’s WiFi connection while simultaneously listening to the media player.

The dual 0.3-megapixel cameras still take the basic photos that won’t do anything to threaten your cellphone, never mind a dedicated point-and-shoot camera, and general speed is unchanged. In comparison to the DSi, the top half of the DSi XL is a glossy fingerprint magnet; happily Nintendo have prioritised functionality over style for the rest of the casing, using easily-held matte plastics. Build quality in general is high, and there’s little flex or creak even after a few journeys dropped into a rucksack. Nintendo reckon you’ll see 5 hours of runtime with the DSi XL brightness on high, and that’s eminently achievable. Of course, you can prolong gaming by notching down the brightness.

Unless you’re having significant issues seeing the displays on your DSi, or demand better audio quality, it’s hard to suggest existing owners upgrade to the DSi XL. Of course, with Nintendo taking the lead in promoting casual or “educational” gaming to those outside of the typical demographic, there could actually be a reasonable portion of gamers struggling. Without higher resolution panels – or the glasses-free 3D technology tipped for the next generation – the DSi XL doesn’t make a must-have case for itself. The fact that it goes on sale alongside, rather than replacing, the DSi is telling. This new model bridges the gap between now and the true next-gen Nintendo handheld, filling a niche certainly but leaving us still more excited about what’s to come.

We got it in just in time to review for tomorrow’s big release date. The first thing that you will notice about this Zune is the custom painted graphic on the back, but that’s not all that you will be getting. This Zune has the full Gears of War 1 soundtrack along with nine Gears of War videos including trailers, behind the scene videos and teasers.  On top of all this you also get 244 Gears of War images such as concept art, images of developers and more.

In the box there is pair of headphones with colored earpiece covers as well as a USB cable for charging and syncing music.  The 120GB Microsoft Zune has even made Vincent’s top 10 list of holiday tech gifts this year. This special edition Zune would be a perfect addition to any gamer’s collection. For those of you who pre-ordered the Zune 160GB Gears of War 2 special edition bundle, this is your Zune. You can snatch one up on November 7th for $279 when you run out to buy the game.  [Click to visit Zune Website]

When opening the box, I was pleased to find an adapter for my old original DS. It’s good that they understand that some people haven’t upgraded to the Lite. Just a few quick turns of a screwdriver made it possible to use the older device. Of course I quickly switched it back so I could play the game on my white Lite.

The guitar accessory was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, which does make it easier to carry around. Unfortunately, smaller is not always better. When you fire up the game you are greeted by a warning to take frequent breaks in order to prevent cramping and discomfort. That troubled me slightly, but I quickly tapped the screen to get onto the good stuff.

I figured I would just go ahead and jump into the career mode. After playing just one song I knew that I was in for a rough time. First, strumming on the touch screen is not fun, especially anytime you go to chug several notes in a row. You do this by rubbing the pick back and forth on the screen, which works fine sometimes, but other times I’ll have a whole series of notes just cut out. If this happens, I have to lift off of the screen and press back down before I can start rubbing again. Not fun.

I tried various ways to hold the DS, and adjusted the hand strap more times than I care to mention, and have yet to find a position that I can describe as comfortable. I have rather large hands, which very well may be a good part of the reason why I have so much trouble with this game. It seems to be made for people with much smaller hands. About 10 minutes of playing is all it takes, after that it’s pain city. I’ve seriously had 5 or 6-hour rock marathons with GH and Rock Band, and only towards the end of those does my had begin to feel like this.

Even before my hand begins to ache, I still have issues just playing the game. When you switch between which buttons are pressed down, your hand inevitably moves. That’s no big deal when the notes are coming slowly, however, if you have a lot of notes coming at you that require different buttons, the screen can shake so badly that you’ll have trouble seeing the upcoming notes. Oh, and don’t shake it too much, or else you’ll accidentally tap on the Star Power meter and activate it at a bad time.

The peripheral itself seems to fit rather snugly into the GBA slot, however, once you get to rocking, you might notice that it comes out a bit. You might notice it because you get this wonderful message that tells you to power off the DS and re-insert the device. That’s right, you can’t just pop it back in and keep going.

The game isn’t all bad news, but its redeeming qualities are far from making up for the negatives. I actually really dig most of the music on the setlist, with Ozzy, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Santana, and Stevie Ray Vaughan topping the list. There are plenty of these songs that I hope to play on GH IV.

I also enjoyed the way the allowed you to activate Star Power. You can tap the Star Power meter (I wish this could be disabled, due to frequent mis-taps), press the X, Y, A or B button and also by yelling into the mic. I would never be caught dead yelling “Rock Out” into the mic of my DS, however, if you just simply blow at your DS, it will register and activate Star Power.

Overall, I was disappointed with the game to say the least. I can attribute some of my issues to the fact that I have large hands. This is unfortunate, as my hands aren’t gargantuan, and there are plenty of people out there with even larger ones. The fact that even playing for 20 minutes would make my hand ache for the rest of a day was enough to make me think twice about picking it back up. Could this game be fun? I’m sure that eventually after plenty of practice I would have some fun with it. I had no issues working my way from easy to expert on the original Guitar Hero. However, I just have no desire to get better at this game. It is seriously the least amount of fun I’ve had with a Guitar Hero title since the 80′s. Looks like it’s up to Aerosmith to quench my thirst for a new way to rock. I give Guitar Hero On Tour 3 out of 5 stars.

[rating: 3]

This isn’t going to be nearly as lengthy as my typical reviews, because to be honest, it’s Rock Band. The game has been out for a while, and as far as gameplay goes, it’s really the same. There are differences to be noted, such as the lack of character creation and online play, but we’ve known about this for some time also.

First thing I’d really like to note here for those that survied the Guitar Hero III disaster on the Wii, it doesn’t output sound in mono. That’s right, this game (much like every other game in the world) supports stereo sound! Unfortunately there’s no Dolby support, so no surround sound for you.

Hooking up the instruments is pretty simple, just hook up your hub and plug in your drums and mic. As for the guitars, you’ll need to plug in your wireless dongle(s). Press the little button on the dongle and then then one on your guitar and you’re good to go.

All you need to do now is pick your band name and you’re ready to rock. The game from here on out is pretty much the same. You don’t collect money for new clothes and stuff, for obvious reasons. You do have a few extra tracks that weren’t on the original set list for the 360 and PS3, it’s not much, but a few extra tracks are always nice.

So how do the instruments perform? The mic is identical to my 360 version, and the drums are almost the same. The only real difference is two bottom bars connecting the feet together are plastic, and seem to almost hug the ground. This seems to make the kit a little more steady, but otherwise they play just as well as my original set.

I haven’t played the PS3 version of the game much, so I can’t say that I’m quite as familiar with the wireless guitars. However, I can definitely say that the ones included in the Wii bundle are awesome. The wireless reaches at least 25 feet without any signal loss or missed notes (I’d have tested from a greater distance, but I ran out of room). The strum and whammy bars felt good, and the buttons were all responsive. I had no issues activating Overdrive by tilting the neck, either.

Overall, I’m pleased with the port. It really does suck that they weren’t able to get any online features or DLC into the game. I don’t really miss the character creation too much, but then again I haven’t added new clothes to my 360 characters since I initially created them. I give Rock Band for the Wii a solid 4 out of 5 gears.

[rating: 4]

Normally when I do a review I try to go as in-depth as possible, however, I’m making an exception here. The reason for this being that these two games have been out in arcades forever. Number 2 was also on the Dreamcast while 3 made an appearance on the original Xbox.

Little has changed about these games since they made their way to the consoles some time ago. With House of the Dead 2 you’ll get to play through either Original or Arcade modes. You’ll get a much longer and in-depth game if you choose to play in Original mode. Number 3 features Arcade mode, Time Attack and for those willing to unlock it, Extreme mode. Expect much tougher gameplay when you tackle this mode.

I won’t bore you with many of the other details, though I will warn you that the dialog is actually far worse than you remember it. You can’t really hold the Wii port accountable for this, as it’s identical to the original games. The graphics are the same as well, though I will note that during particularly dense areas in House of the Dead 3 the screen would get a bit choppy. It didn’t interfere much with gameplay, but it was there.

At the end of the day only one thing matters, and that’s how it plays. Honestly the game played beautifully. It’s just as much fun as I remember it in the arcades. It’s particularly awesome because you can get different gun attachments for the Wii on the cheap, so getting one for a friend (or your other hand) isn’t difficult.

I wouldn’t actually recommend the Wii Zapper for this game. You don’t use the Nunchuk at all, so there’s no need to have it there. I’d go with a couple of smaller ones that are shaped more like pistols.

The game is reasonably priced at just $29 bucks. You can easily pick it up and a couple of controllers for what you’ll pay for some other new titles. I give House of the Dead 2 & 3 four out of five gears.

[rating: 4]

The game (like its predecessors) comes packaged with a guitar controller. Only this time the guitar comes in two pieces. The Xbox 360 version of the game was developed by Neversoft, and included a Gibson Les Paul style controller. They also included a nifty faceplate for our new axe.

The wireless guitars add a new level of freedom, and allow you to truly rock out. I’ll admit a lamp or two got knocked over throughout the course of the evening.

New modes of play create a bit more replay value. Some songs are only unlocked by playing through co-op career mode. And with online and local battling you can school your friends in the living room or across the pond, in an all out “power up” fueled head to head.

Plenty of characters, songs and other extras to unlock, and downloadable content keeps you playing. But bottom line – it’s the same guitar hero we all love with a much better track list, and a few features we wish we had from the start.

Like criminal pathology or Steve Martin films, the idea is to unravel a mixed up situation; in this case, it’s a phrase from popular culture that has been sliced up into five different segments.  Each of the coloured domes on top of the crescent-shaped game deck represents one of these segments, and it’s your job to rearrange them from their initial, muddled positions to the correct phrase.

It’s a ridiculously easy concept that is far more straightforward to demonstrate than it is to explain.  In each round the balls light up from left to right, with one of two vaguely annoying voices speaking the jumbled phrase accordingly; you then rush in a crazed panic to swap them around before you forget what each stands for, finishing up by whacking the Solve button to see how many you got right. 

There are two main modes of play, where either time or the number of guesses available are limited; single-player gaming consists of five rounds, with either the time limit decreasing (from thirty seconds down to just ten) or the guesses decreasing (from five down to one).  There’s also a “Sudden Death” mode which sadly doesn’t electrify the balls but instead deals up five rounds of ten seconds or single guesses.  Difficulty of play can be governed through setting Say What? to one of three different levels, where either two, one or none of the pieces start out in their correct places. 

Like I said, it sounds vaguely complicated but in actual fact you’ll be juggling in no time.  There are apparently over 300 phrases stored inside, from TV, film, song lyrics and famous soundbites, and if you’re really struggling you can hit the “Hint” button to be told what medium the quote comes from.  Up to five players can be involved in a single game, each at differing levels of difficulty, with Say What? keeping score and even unleashing a Sudden Death round if it comes down to a tie-break.  Thanks to all that, it actually becomes feasible to pit adults against children without one group or another feeling hopelessly incapable.

It’s a good thing, too, because once you start playing it’s tricky to stop.  Yes, the voices may be annoyingly chirpy and loud, but more often than not people insist on hitting Play Again “just one more time”.  Around my office hitherto-unknown rivalry suddenly flared, with some particularly sneaky attempts to put competitors off their game by shouting out alternative phrases.  The plastics and construction are all solid and feel durable – important considering things get hectic when you know you’ve only got a few seconds left – and despite a whole lot of play the original four AA batteries are still going strong.  And if you’re childish (like me) then you’ll always get a giggle from taking out one of the pieces and hearing the guy shout “missing a ball!”

If I had to criticise, there are one or two annoyances and one perhaps more fundamental issue about Say What?  The former would include the lack of a volume control – don’t expect to get a sneaky game in late at night if your walls are thin – and the lack of a carrying case, or at least some way to secure the five balls for transport.  It might also be nice to see a countdown display for timed games; as it is, Say What? just bleeps at you when you’re down to the final five seconds.  As for bigger concern, it’s a matter of longevity really.  Many of the included phrases are very topical at the moment – recent pop songs, quotes from films – but could potentially date quickly, and there’s no way (aside from Radica releasing an updated version) to add new ones in.

Still, at £24.95 ($51) it’s not exactly trying to compete with a PS3, in fact it’s cheaper even than a game for a current console while likely to entice even staunch non-gamers to have a try.  If your family gatherings are filled with dreary silence and only punctuated with vague recrimination then you might just find Say What? makes all the difference; as the game itself might say “buy this you game should”!

Say What? is available now from Firebox.com; thanks to them for sending it over for review.

This game is actually a sequel to The Wind Waker which came out back in 2003. The game picks up after an unspecified time and is centered around the Ghost Ship which played a minor role in the previous game. Tetra (she decided to go back to her original name) is captured aboard the Ghost Ship and you must track it down and rescue her. For some reason it’s not nearly as easy to board as it was in The Wind Waker.

For pretty much everything in the game, you use your stylus. The only other button you use is either your R or L button which readies your equipped item. Running, attacking, talking and anything else are all done with your trusty stylus. It’s really cool, though if you play for extended periods your hand might start to cramp.

My favorite weapon has always been the boomerang. It’s just so versatile; whether you want to stun an enemy, grab an item or hit a switch, the boomerang is your best friend. I didn’t really think that there was any possible way to make something as simple as this weapon better, but they did. When you ready your boomerang you can actually draw the exact path that you want it to follow. You can draw amazingly complicated paths and it just zips right along. It’s very cool.

The puzzle-solving in this game is great. I don’t want to give anything away to those that haven’t played it, but the game takes full advantage of the DS, including the mic. More often than not, it’s good to make notes. You can actually pull up your map and scribble on it to remind yourself of certain things. The puzzles are neither to difficult or too easy, Zelda games always tend to walk that fine line very well, and this game is no exception.

If there were a downside to this game it would be that you get around mostly by sailing, and it is similar to the Wind Waker. Before you let out that groan, it’s really not that bad. Most of your trips are fairly short, and you generally keep yourself entertained by shooting the canon at bad guys (or seagulls).

This is honestly one of the best games I’ve played in a while. I give The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass 4.5 out of 5 gears.

[rating: 4.5/5]

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, and imagine my coquettish excitement at seeing the game – now called Khet – on UK site Firebox.com. A few emails later and I had a copy of the original Deflexion game in my freshly-washed hands. Deflexion, as my sample is branded, is now Khet on both sides of the Atlantic; I’ll point out any minor differences as necessary.

Egyptian themed, Khet uses a 10 x 8 square board measuring roughly 17.5-inches by 14.5-inches and made of moulded plastic. Each square has raised edges to hold pieces in place, and the retail version is decorated around the border with raised hieroglyphics. At diagonally opposing corners, each player has a class I red laser (class II in the US), pointing directly across the board and operated by a button on the border.

Play begins with each side having twelve pieces, one set in silver and the other in red (gold in my photos), made up of Pyramids, Djeds, Obelisks and a Pharaoh. The former are equipped with mirrors – one on each Pyramid and two on each Djed – while the latter have none. From one of two initial set-ups according to the instructions, play consists of each gamer either moving a piece one square in any direction or rotating a piece ninety-degrees, before pressing their laser button.

Obviously, the aim of the game is to construct a series of mirrors with which you can bounce either your laser or that of your opponent to their Pharaoh, at which point you win and are allowed to perform The Dance Of The King Surveying The Vanquished. Along the way, should you hit the non-mirrored side of a piece, it is removed from play.

That’s a pretty dry description, so let’s cut to the chase – Khet is fantastic. The laser is both an attention-grabbing gimmick and an essential part of play, while the pieces are tactile and pleasing. Unlike many games which boast broad age ranges (Khet is advertised as suitable for ages 9 upward) but in actual fact present too great a learning curve for most children and too little a challenge for adults, it relies more on your ability to strategise and think ahead than grasping obscure rules or testing general knowledge. The instructions themselves consist of three pages, one of which is taken up with the two initial layouts, and are clearly written and easily understood. Anyone who can grasp the concept of a laser bouncing at right-angles can play.