Sony will be putting out open casting for season 2 of The Tester very soon. Check www.thetester.com for the announcement. The prize is $10K along with a year contract as a Sony Tester. My current job pays too well, but it'd be great to see middle-aged contestants on that show!

Two things are consistent with reality-type shows. The second season always wants prettier people and strong personalities. I actually found the first season to have a nice mix of normal people. They need to focus on the personalities of the contestants more.

Yes, the Tester is a guilty pleasure of mine.

This link: Mamono Sweeper

is for a minesweeper game with RPG elements. What? Here's the deal: when you click on a cell, it tells you the sum total of the levels of the creatures in the surrounding cells. Here's how it works:

• You have 10 hit points.
• You start at level 1.
• You earn experience with every creature you uncover.
• You can only defeat creatures at your level or lower.

So at the beginning of the game, you can click on empty cells and cells with level-1 creatures. I'm not sure how the experience applies to your own level. This means that a cell without a number and a cell with a one are safe to click on the surrounding cells.

After defeating most of the level-1 creatures, you level up and you can than safely click on level two creatures. If you uncover a creature of higher level then you, it does 2 points of damage for every level it is higher than you. That means you get five or less mistakes, and clicking on a level-5 (highest level) creature...

Google added the anniversary Pac Man game permanently at http://www.google.com/pacman/

How cool is that?

First off, I think they will master 3D someday. Let's look at TV/Movies for starters. First there was silent films. Then there were "talkies" that ruined some silent stars' careers because their voices and vocal acting wasn't up to snuff. Then, after being used to Black and White movies comes color, which had to have a costly impact on production. Not only was colorization slow, but set and wardrobe choices changed completely to account for the colors.

Hey, this is all guesswork, so just consider it an argument. When color film and color TV's became popular, it probably threw the whole color choices another loop, now that they have to be colors that look best on film. I'm sure DVDs added an extra level of detail that required film post-processing. I remember them discussing how Star Trek, the original series, required a lot of cleanup because mismatched seams and coffee stains were now visible. Then came HD which most likely made makeup procedures longer and more...

I think I just figured out the science fiction portion of Lost, but I won't say it here. I give some hints in the spoilers though!

We have seen a "flash sideways" in earlier seasons!


The science fiction part of the plot is based on Land of the Lost, an old, crappy Saturday morning show in the 70's.



I definitely don't know what will happen with the spiritual part of the story in Lost.

I was listening to the latest podcast from http://www.gamehounds.net/ (it uses NSFW language, so check it out at home). They were at Penny Arcade Expo East (PAX East) talking to the developer of Disney Interactive's upcoming game "Split Second." He did such a great job of representing Disney. They asked about "Disney" being equated to "kids," but the developer said he equates "Disney" with "quality." What a guy! Split Second is an all-ages racing game, I believe, and it includes such wonderful things as dropping buildings on your competitors (no sarcasm, it sounds great).

I also got "Mr. Driller: Drill 'til you drop" from DSiware. I bought Mr. Driller: Drill Spirits for the DS long ago, just after the DS launch. The regular stages in the DSiware, where you have to dig to a certain level, seem identical to the older game. The time attack levels also seem the same.

The newer game adds one mode...

I finally had my Pokewalker out for a good week-long walkabout. My Pidgey leveled up one and opened up a new path for the walker. Different paths means different pokemon encounters. My Pidgey found about 6 items and 3 pokemon (two Sentarets and a Kangaskhan). Once you've walked a bit, you can search for items and pokemon yourself by playing a small game on the pokewalker.

When you transfer it back to your DS game, it tells you a little story about what happened on its trip. That was a nice touch. I immediately transferred one of the Sentarets back to the walker for the next round. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the pokewalker interface is outside of the game itself, so you must do it before you continue a game.

I discovered the Commodore 64 emulator for the iPhone was free yesterday, so I downloaded it. Let's face it, this is no substitute for firin' up the old Commie. I also noticed that Let's Tans has a new puzzle pack for 99 cents....

I just looked up the rarity of some of the cartridges I own. Crazy Climber and Video Cube were Atari-club exclusives, so that made them pretty rare. My Earthquest: Waterworld is the rarest I own. Trust me when I say there were buckets of all of these games in the sale bin when I got them. Does that mean people threw them away?

I purchased the PSP Game Echoshift. It was half-price at $7.50, which enticed me. The demo was good. It's a time-travel game where you get ten "selves" working on a puzzle game over the same 30 seconds. You know the drill, you may have to make space to play it.

Meanwhile, I added Shao Lin's Road to my arcade games. When I was in college, my local arcade had it under the name "Kicker." I used to be able to play it for an hour on one quarter. But that brings a topic I think I've mentioned before. Arcades are the worst pirates of games! They will buy a game anyway they can, just to get it for cheap.

I've...

I sent you a video of a European Nintendo DS game involving a crazy chicken and plucking strings to make him jump up and down--to music! If it were "on ice," it would be perfect. That game was Maestro.

Enter Maestro: Green Groove. It is practically the same game, only you flick with your finger. This makes it a little harder than the DS. The difficulty is brutal. You must get everything right, or you have to do it over until perfect. The game was cheap, 99 cents. The first real song you do after the loooong tutorials is Beethovens 5th Symphony Prelude. Ouch! Not for the faint of heart.

At least the game is out there. I would assume the goal is to put it out in North America. What they should do is get some licensed music out there. I like the classical no-copyright music, too!

Here's a quick summary:

1) I got God of War III (PS3). It's a good game, but I'm not feeling the
incredible size of the Titans. It's like they're projected on a green
screen behind a matte. Actually, I think that must be going on, a
pre-rendered action sequence in the background.

2) I got Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox360). It's a good game. When I finally
did my first boss battle, the Pulse Fal'cie, it became clear that choices in
battle are crucial. Up to that point, you could literally just keep pushing
"A" until the battle is over. So now I'm ready for the "big" game.

3) Game room is really buggy on the Xbox360. The PC version runs smooth and looks like the actual arcade game.

4) "Let's Tans" is a free tangram game on iPhone/iPod Touch. It's tangram, the real difficulty is when you need to break free of an assumption on a puzzle. Otherwise, they're pretty easy....

My retraction comes because I was wrong on three counts.

1) Amazon does not make the 93% bigger claim.

2) A commentor did the math and proved it was not an exaggeration at all.

3) I was comparing the DS Lite to the DSi, not the DSi XL.

This blog entry is in error, my next post retracts it because everything the commentors said is the real truth. It is 93% bigger. I left the post in the spoiler if you must see my mistake.


If you go to buy a DSi XL on Amazon, you'll see an incredulous claim in Product Features:

Quote: New, large diagonal LCD screen size (4.2-inch) allows for the best visual quality DS gaming experience to date. Screens are 93% larger than the DS Lite.

Here are the actual Screen sizes (touch screen comparison)

DS Lite: 1.81 inches x 2.4 inches (4.344 square inches)
DSi XL: 1.96 inches x 2.59 inches (5.0764 square inches)

If the XL is 93% bigger than the Lite, the area of the new XL screen has to be 193% the area of the Lite. However, the difference is actually only

5.0764 sq in / 4.344 sq in = 1.17 aka

117% (17% larger)

Amazon needs to fact-check their writers! 93% bigger would ...

My friend, Karen, pre-ordered the DSi XL. Within a week of its release, Nintendo put out a press release that they will premiere a new DSi next year. Dubbed the "3DS", it will be DS an DSi compatible, and the graphics will be 3D without special glasses. Since I know that 3D isn't that cheap, yet, it sounds like they will use the vertical-slat lens technique or some other gimmick. It may be like the old arcade games with a semi-reflective mirror (think Pinball 2000), which isn't true 3D, but we will see. The DSi XL will be good for more than a year, though, so it still seems like money well spent.

Also, a rerelease of Batman: Arkham Asylum is supposed to have 3D built-in, but they said you won't need a special monitor or glasses. Interesting. Knowing the way the eyes perceive the world, as in they can be tricked, I wouldn't be surprised if they found a technique to fool the brain that the eyes are seeing 3D. It sounds a little too good to be true.

This morning, I had some time to download Game Room for the PC. I ran out of time before I could really test it, but here are the things I noticed:

1) Games for Windows Live is a free download. Like Steam, it is a framework for digital downloads.

2) You will need an existing MSN name for your Gamertag. If you don't have one, get a new one. MSN is also free.

3) Game Room is a free download. It takes 5-10 minutes to download.

4) Game Room is a long install. It took about 15 minutes for me.

5) Game Room is not particularly user-friendly on the PC. It's hard to tell how to continue. The on-screen prompts continue with the Game Room, the drop-down menus are GFW Live tools. Hitting "X" on that top menu will simply hide the GFW Live desktop.

6) Once you get into the game, it asks you to download new content. It implies that this costs money, but it doesn't. Download both packs, 1 and 2. These...

Here's a direct link of the 3DS press release from Nintendo in English. It doesn't say much more than others have posted.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2010/100323e.pdf

An important thing to pull from this release is that "3DS" is marked "(temp)" indicating name may change; However, that is incredibly apt for what they claim to release next year.

I played a ton of Mega Man 9 last weekend. The game makes you seriously consider quitting! I had thought the game too hard for me on Friday, but the practice paid off when I played it on Saturday. Yesterday, I got to the penultimate bad guy, and it makes me want to quit again!

This week the Xbox Live Arcade comes out. That's the virtual arcade where you can store and access games you purchased. You may also play each game once for 50 cents. Doing the math shows that it is usually cheaper to just buy games outright for Freeplay. It also includes Atari 2600 titles, for some reason.

The Arcade will also come to Games for Windows Live, which is for PC owners. I'm not sure if it is premiering on Wednesday along with Xbox. You can buy games for both systems at once, which is something I'll probably do.

The 50 cents-a-game will be worth it if you never played a certain game before. Along with old favorites, there are a couple of obscure old games....

I've been playing a lot of Flight Control on the iPod. It's really hard, but very addictive. You think to yourself, "just don't let the planes crash into each other, and I'll be fine." You still lose sight of playfield when you have two or more planes about to crash. Even if you succeed, there will probably be planes crashing at the other end of the air field. I'm discovering the main reason it is difficult is because of jumbo jets needing to land on the same runway as jets. Jumbos fly at near double speed of the regular Jets. A the other end of the spectrum are the slow helicopters which just get in your way.

I'm slowly making my way through the final levels of Mega Man 9. I beat the first part of Wiley's Fortress. I saved at that point, but the old Mega Man games required you do all of the Fortress in one session. I expect this one will be the same.

Want to hear blasphemy? My fried Karen's Dragon Age: Origins Awakening is still in the...

Hey! I beat Hornet Man in Mega Man 9 and ...

*KNOCK* *KNOCK*

Is this thing on?

*KNOCK* *KNOCK**KNOCK* *KNOCK*

Oh, yeah. Dragon Age.

Never mind!

It's a shame nothing major is being released today except for the Dragon Age: Origins Awakening and God of War III. There won't be anything to do! Add to that a new LOST and a new clip-show on Flash Forward. So there's nothing on TV unless I watch American Idol. YAAAAAWN! I'm tired already.

In Mega Man 9, I only have one more robot before the final battle with Dr. Light (Wiley?), Hornet Man. This usually involves defeating the 8 robots again and your mirror self, in addition to two or three super-sized robots. When I finish that, I'll be ready for the already released (Wii and PSN) Mega Man 10.

I discovered the Rush Jet (your robotic dog turns into a jet) and the Jewel Shield (4 diamonds circling around you protects from most projectiles), cover almost all dangers! It also uses meta-rules built into the game's code. Some robots will jump off the screen if you let them, and sometimes (Electric Man level), there can only be 3 of one enemy at a time--so have them...

I write sometimes long-winded, game-related email to my friends. They urged me to blog this stuff, so a little listten-in to my friends Abbey and the rest.

Game-wise, I tried out several! I downloaded Flight Control and Dark Void Zero on the DSiWare. Flight Control is the same as the iPod, but I like the precision of the stylus. Just draw flight paths to land the airplanes without them crashing. My high score is only 40 planes on any airfield. Dark Void Zero is a new game in the NES-Style 8-bit. It's fantastic, and I understand it was only released for DSi for hyping the console game, Dark Void. The reviews said this little NES game is better than the retail game. Doh!

I also saw a CCG on DSi called Elemental Master. Played on a 3x3 grid, I can't help but wonder if it is Eye of Judgment made generic. I didn't buy that one.

In Toys R Us, I bought the latest Heart Gold Pokémon game. It put me to sleep (finally) last night. Nothing really...