After seeing an announcment that the upcomming Ubisoft game HAWX will have support for Philips's AmBX it got me thinking about peripherals that try to immerse the player further into the game. The AmBX provides rumble, lights, fans and sound for your PC to get the player more "in" the game. I have no idea if it's any good since it's way pricey but I see what they are going for. There's been a load of these thing throughout gaming history and usually they aren't that great, Power Glove anyone? As a kid I wanted one of those so bad.. ly(see what I did thar?) but I couldn't get a hold of one. I'm not even sure they were sold over here.

During the prime of the Playstation these kind of things where still around and I obviously fell for it. In this case it was also a glove. It's not the exact thing as the AmBX but I'd like to think they are aiming at the same thing: immersion. It didn't incorporate any kind of fancy motion sensing controls. It was just a hunk of plastic you strapped to your hand with buttons on top. The only remarkable thing was the d-pad replacement. The thing had one axis for horizontal movements and one for vertical located a bit further up on your arm. To use them you hade to move your wrist up/down and left/right to hit the different directions. It was really, really awkward and made my wrist sore. To no surprise I quickly went back to the Dual Shock.
I even saw an ad for some kind of shoe-controller(!) later on aimed at soccer games.



What I'm getting at here is: do we need things like the AmBX? Sure, it just something optional but will there be more of this kind thing in the future and will affect the console and PC market alike? We already have rumble in our controllers for the most part but it's not that common in PC gaming. Audio and visual effects are handled by the TV/monitor and sometimes surround. And a fan? I really think I think I would be quite annoyed with that thing in my face after playing PGR4 or something for an extended amount of time. I could see how PC games could benefit from some of the features as the keyboard/mouse combo doesn't allow for the same kind interaction as a gamepad.
So that's what I was thinking a little about and now I never want to hear the words "immersive" and "peripheral" again .

I really enjoyed World In Conflict and the fact that Massive Entertainment is a swedish developer only makes things better.
Here is a new gameplay trailer for the new game Soviet Assault which is the same game as the one released for PC last year but with an extra Soviet campaign for the consoles.



By the way the song is Death To My Hometown by Logh (swedish band yay).

I like playing around in GIMP and making covers and stuff, it's awesome. Sadly I haven't had the time for it lately. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to doing some new stuff this summer.

Since a couple of you seemed to like my Castlevania cover I decided to upload it so you can print and use it if you want to. If you do please send me a pic of the result because I'm currently out of glossy paper and I'd love to see how it turns out.




I did some other covers for some XBLA covers too but I'm not half as happy with these because of the Nintendo seal of approval ruins it all :(. So I never quite finished them thats why some things look a little wierd.

Rush 'N Attack!!!!


Contra

Just though I'd post a custom cover I made for the XBLA-version of Symphony Of The Night a while back. I just felt this great game deserved a case of it's own despite that fact that there is no disc for it :P. A bit bummed that I couldn't get a decent version of the original title though.

Since my SNES stopped working a while back this is awesome: The Retro Duo!!!

# Has enhanced S-video output
# Plays Original Nintendo 8-Bit Games
# Plays Original Super Nintendo Games
# Plays Original Japanese Super Famicom Games
# Plays Original European (PAL) Super Nintendo Games
# Includes 2 SNES Style Controllers
# Includes All TV Hookups

Basically it's an NES/SNES clone in one machine. Since used SNES consoles are really overpriced here and in poor quality at that. And this little baby also works with games from all regions. The downside is that it looks kinda ugly but I could get used to that. Can't wait to play Mario Kart on the real deal again. Gotta replace the controllers though. If I end up buying it I'll be sure to write a review with lots of pics.

*Edit
Videos with a bit of info.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kcCbgVkfY4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZBN5c7V2G4

How I hate you...

You guessed it, I have a confession to make. I really, really hate Mafia. I know most people like this game but I for the life of me I can't stand it.
I bought it when it came out and had really high expectations. Initially it seemed great. Amazing graphics(which brought my Geforce 2 to it's knees), great voice-overs and most importantly an amazing atmosphere.
But after about an hour the new game novelty wore off. Mafia turned out to be one of the most frustrating games I've ever played. I specifically remember one mission where you were supposed to smash up a couple of cars in a lot. Sounds easy enough doesn't it? NO! Wrecking the cars themselves was pretty easy but getting away from the scene of the crime was another deal entirely. While trying to get away in my stylish T-Ford my tires where mercilessly shot out and left me swerving all over the road. Not long after the vehicle was damaged beyond recognition and I hade to get out before turning into a crispy fedora-wearing corpse. Things certainly don't get any better on foot in this game. Moments later I was shot and run over.
Sure maybe I just suck at the game in question but after maybe 5 tries this kind of thing gets annoying. My major gripe with this game are the controls, they are so stiff and awkward turning the most meanial task into a lesson in anger management.
The GTA-series also suffer from this kind of thing but as much. GTA can also be immensely frustrating but at least here you can just go something else while you regain the will to give the particular mission a try. But as far as I can remember in Mafia there were no sidequests at all.


I did not care for Mafia. Did not care for Mafia

I still tried to finish Mafia despite it's flaws but that was a serious mistake. Most people who have played Mafia know what I'm talking about. The legendary racing sequence! For some reason I can't be bothered to remember you have to take part in a Formula 1-style race. This was ridiculously hard. I lost count of how many times I crashed or just couldn't get first place. That's right you had to win the damn thing!
This was were I gave up on the game completely. Not only was the game kind of stiff and the gameplay kind of boring but putting in a racing part this hard just pissed me off to no end. Reading wikipedia there was apparently a patch where you could change the difficulty of the race but I doubt I would have continued playing anyway.
So there you have it, I don't like Mafia. This turned out way longer than I expected but I really hate this game and with the sequel being announced a while back I just felt I needed to vent this :D.