While I’m an avid fan of the [i]Tony Hawk[/i] franchise, it’s no secret that the series has slowly gone downhill year after year. After hearing of the disappointing presentation of [i]Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland[/i] for the Xbox 360, I turned to [i]Amped 3[/i]’s snowboarding for my next-gen extreme sport fix. While it is pretty clear that [i]Amped 3[/i] draws its inspiration from a number of different titles in the genre, notably the [i]Tony Hawk[/i] and [i]SSX[/i] series, it also creates an atmosphere unique to itself and a manic style that almost nothing else can match. Although it is ultimately a fairly short ride, [i]Amped 3[/i] is a blast to play and keeps you guessing all the way through.
The story behind [i]Amped 3[/i] may seem simple and clichA
I must admit when I first looked at [i]Brain Age[/i] I was thinking to myself, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” After playing I can’t help but think of the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover.” [i]Brain Age[/i] may seem silly and even perhaps a little dorky at first glance. Give it a chance; you might be surprised what you find inside.
To sum it up, [i]Brain Age[/i] is a video game developed by a real neuroscientist – Dr. Ryuta Kawashima of Japan- that helps you develop your “brain age.” The game consists of multiple mental exercises ranging from simple math calculations to reading aloud to help you train your brain to be tested in the [i]Brain Age[/i] Check.
When you first start the game you get to create a profile. The only noteworthy thing at this point is that you get to use the stylus to create your signature. You also input your birth date and what hand you use to write with. The nice thing is there are multiple profile spaces so that for instance Cone and myself both have our separate training space. And then I can gloat when I have a lower brain age. After your profile is set, you then get your first [i]Brain Age[/i] Check. Your brain age is a number that reflects how active your brain is. The best possible “age” is 20. I am currently at age 23. Your goal, obviously, is to train to get to age 20.
Once you are established as an old fart in the brain age world you then get to go to the Daily Training area of the game so that tomorrow you can improve that embarrassing brain age. You can only record scores for training and your brain age once a day, so it encourages you, nay forces you to play daily. In the training area there are multiple exercises to choose from and the more you play, the more you unlock. My personal favorite at this point it one called “Head Count.” It would be much too complicated to explain in full but it deals with keeping track of people as they enter and exit a house. It is definitely a challenge. The game keeps track of your scores via graphs and you can compare yourself to other player’s profiles and also hook up your DS to another to compare scores and other things.
Also included with the training and brain age testing is Sudoku. You have probably seen it before in the newspaper. It is a series of 3 x 3 squares with some numbers provided to you. You have to then fill in the blank squares with the numbers 1-9. That may sound simple, but there’s more. Each 3 x 3 square can only contain each number once, as can each column and row. It is addicting that is for sure. It is pretty sad that for the past few nights after our son goes to sleep Cone and I fight over who gets to play Sudoku first.
A bit cheesy at times, some of the things the doctor says to you are a bit corny. A bit weird, like when it asks you to draw a rhino, a giraffe, and then Africa from memory to be compared to the drawings the doctor did himself. I maintain that there is no way ANYONE could draw as well as he does with a stylus on a DS screen. Overall, [i]Brain Age[/i] is a fun way to spend a few minutes – or hours if you are Sudoku-ing it – everyday making yourself smarter. You really can’t complain about that. And if your mom tells you to put down the handheld for a while you can simply explain that you are trying to better yourself as a human being. Just don’t tell her I said that…
Games Workshop has apparently licensed the PC games rights for their fantasy (American) football franchise to Cyanide. (Just to be clear, “fantasy” in this case denotes orcs, elves, and losts of over the top violence.) That would be the UK developer for the indie fantasy football game Chaos League, which is similar to Blood Bowl in a lot of ways. My understanding is that Chaos League was a pretty solid game, so hopefully they can do the franchise some justice. I know some guys who are serious Blood Bowl fanatics, keeping the game alive long after its publishing death, so I think they’ll be pretty pleased.
[url=http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3151768]Prepare for a Blood Bowl[/url]
Two online military shooters are getting content updates this week. Day of Defeat: Source, which I am a huge fan of, is getting two new maps and a new gametype. SOCOM III is also getting a map pack which is free for the next two weeks. After that it will be available from a built-in SOCOM online store, along with future content. The maps will be based on SOCOM II favorites.
[url=http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2006/6/27/4455]Day of Defeat Source to be updated this Wednesday[/url] (Arstechnica)
[url=http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/socom/maps-online-store-comes-to-socom-3-183685.php]Maps, Online Store Comes to SOCOM 3[/url] (Kotaku)
Call of Duty 2 is getting a mappack on Xbox Live Marketplace on Thursday, too.
[url=http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3151766]Call of Duty 2 Map Pack Details[/url] (1up)
Gamesindustry.biz is reporting that the Wiiconnect24 service may have downloadable content and micropayments like Xbox Live, but there’s other news hidden away in the article:
[quote]Fils-Aime went on to reiterate the company’s plans to allow for downloadable content. “If you’ve gotten to a particular part in a game, we could push content out to you, so you get to battle a new boss. Maybe you get a new artifact; maybe you get a new weapon,” he said.
These items could be downloaded in the background using the console’s WiiConnect24 service, [b]which will also allow the system to function as a server of sorts, opening Animal Crossing towns and other player-specific content to friends without the console being fully turned on[/b].[/quote]
I’m very curious about that server part. I’m no Animal Crossing fan, but it sounds like it could be fun in a lot of games. Let’s hope it gets put to good use!
[url=http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17927]Wii could support microtransactions[/url] (Gamesindustry.biz)
